GE6RGE 
MADDEN 
MARTIN 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Abbie  Ann 


,. 


Abbie  Ann 


Abbie  Ann 


BY 


GEORGE  MADDEN  MARTIN 

AUTHOR  OF  "  EMMY  LOU  " 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY  C.  M.  RELYEA 


New  York 

The  Century  Co. 

1907 


Copyright,  1906,  1907,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published  October, 


THE    DE  VINNE    PRESS 


D 


PS 


A/ 


List  of  Illustrations 


Abbie  Ann Frontispiece 

PAGE 

"  She  tried  to  see  her  new  sash  " 9 

"  A  bump,  a  rush  of  air,  the  noise  of  a  locomotive  waked 

her" 15 

Jim,  the  brakeman,  finds  Abbie  Ann  on  the  flat-car       .     22 

"  Once,  Abbie  Ann — there  was  a  little  girl  with  hair  and 

eyes  like  yours  "    .  39 

"  Mr.  McEwan  was  making  notes  on  the  back  of  an  en 
velop  " 61 

"  Each  one  had  brought  her  something  for  a  '  good-by  '  "     67 
Abbie's  last  days  with  her  father 74 

"  Abbie  Ann,  standing  forlornly  in  the  center  of  the  lone 
some  room,  began  to  sob"  80 

Martha  Lunn  inspecting  Abbie  Ann's  new  hat  ...  87 

"  That  afternoon  she  helped  Maria  unpack  "  ....  99 

"  Suddenly  the  puppet  became  a  ghost  " 107 

Abbie  Ann  knocking  at  Miss  Henrietta's  door  .  .  122 

"' I  have  brought  her,  you  see '" 126 

"  Abbie  was  studying  her  nose  closely  and  critically  "  .  135 

"  Abbie  Ann  wrote  a  letter  to  her  father  " 139 


List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 


Abbie  passes  Katharine  Van  Antwerp  in  the  hall  .  .  148 

Abbie's  box  arrives 157 

Aunt  Abbie  and  Abbie  at  the  milliner's 1 70 

'"This,  is  where  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette — '  "  .  175 

Aunt  Abbie  appearing  in  Abbie's  room  at  night  .  .  181 

"  Miss  Ann  drew  herself  up  " 200 

Aunt  Ann  playing  the  piano 205 

Maria,  Abbie  and  Aunt  Ann  looking  at  the  contents  of 

the  old  leather  trunk 220 

"Abbie  Ann  rushed,  frantic  with  joy,  to  her  father  "       .  225 


Abbie  Ann 


Abbie  Ann 


BBIE  ANN,  as  she  skipped 
along  the  platform  of  the 
little  railroad  station  by  her 
father's  side,  turned  her  head 
to  see  her  new  sash.  Perhaps  she  was 
wishing  there  was  some  one  beside  herself 
to  admire  it;  but  the  tracks,  the  switches, 
the  station,  made  Coal  City,  as  it  was 
some  twenty  years  ago.  Beyond  the  bend, 
nearer  the  coke  ovens,  were  the  rows  of 
frame  houses  occupied  by  the  miners  and 
their  families. 

Abbie  Ann's  father  was  tall  and  close- 
bearded  and  he  looked  pre-occupied ;  he 
was  leading  her  along  by  the  hand  as  if 


Abbie  Ann 

he  had  forgotten  entirely  that  she  was 
there,  and  she  was  skipping,  not  only  be 
cause  the  general  tune  of  life  is  one  to  skip 
to,  but  because  he  went  so  fast. 

He  paused  at  the  open  door  of  the  sta 
tion  and  Mr.  McEwan  the  agent,  within, 
looked  up.  Next  to  her  father,  Abbie 
Ann  who  was  nine  years  old,  long  ago 
had  decided  she  cared  for  Mr.  McEwan 
more  than  for  any  one  else  in  the  world. 
Now  her  world,  beside  father  and  Mr. 
McEwan,  consisted  of  Coal  City  and  its 
inhabitants,  the  miners  and  their  families. 

He  looked  up  as  they  darkened  the  door 
way,  and  the  telegraph  instrument  clicked 
on  under  his  rapid  fingers. 

"May  I  leave  Abbie  with  you  for  an 
hour  or  more  ?"  asked  her  father,  stepping 
into  the  room. 

Mr.  McEwan  looked  at  Abbie  Ann.  He 
wore  glasses  and  when  he  opened  his  eyes 
wide  and  blinked  them  quick,  the  glasses 
winked.  They  winked  at  Abbie  now. 

4 


Abbie  Ann 

"Why  not?"  said  he. 

Another  thing  about  Mr.  McEwan  was, 
that  when  he  raised  his  eyebrows  inter 
rogatively,  it  lifted  his  hair  too,  which  was 
red  and  which  stood  up  like  a  brush. 
When  his  glasses  winked  and  his  hair 
lifted,  Abbie  had  come,  long  ago,  to  know 
that  he  was  pleased. 

This  being  the  case  now,  and  his  little 
daughter  provided  for,  Abbie  Ann's  father 
turned  hastily  and  went  back  to  the  wag 
onette  where  the  gentlemen  who  had  come 
to  see  the  mine,  were  waiting.  When 
money  is  being  sought  to  further  develop 
a  coal  mine,  would-be  investors  are  to  be 
given  undivided  attention.  So  Abbie  Ann 
was  left  behind  and  father  and  the  gentle 
men  drove  off. 

She  went  over  to  the  desk  and  stood 
beside  Mr.  McEwan  who,  looking  up,  sur 
veyed  her  with  a  speculative  air.  Then  he 
shook  his  head  dubiously. 

"You  really  don't  look  it,"  he  said. 

5 


Abbie  Ann 

"What?"  asked  Abbie  Ann. 

"A  young  barbarian." 

Abbie  grew  violently  red.  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan  was  quoting  the  lady  who  had  gone 
off  on  the  evening  train  the  night  be 
fore  last.  She  had  been  engaged  to  come 
to  Coal  City  in  the  interests  of  Abbie  Ann 
and  her  general  welfare  and  education  and 
had  departed  after  making  a  discourag- 
ingly  short  trial  of  the  situation  and  there 
fore  Abbie  now  grew  red 

But  here  the  telegraph  instrument, 
which  never  had  stopped,  began  to  click 
frantically,  and  Mr.  McEwan  transferred 
his  attention  from  her  to  it. 

Abbie  was  used  to  every  one  being  busy ; 
her  father  was  always  pre-occupied,  being 
a  part  owner,  and  the  superintendent  of 
the  mine;  everybody  in  Coal  City  was 
busy,  the  miners,  their  wives,  the  children, 
all,  it  would  seem,  but  Abbie  Ann  and  the 
babies. 

It  was  hot  in  the  telegraph  office  and  it 
6 


Abbie  Ann 

proved  just  as  hot  in  the  waiting  room. 
Also  the  benches  around  the  walls  were 
hard,  and  she  knew  the  old  faded  rail 
road  posters  by  heart,  so  she  tried  to  see 
her  new  sash  in  the  cheap  little  look 
ing-glass  which  hung,  tilted,  opposite  the 
ticket  window.  She  had  bought  the  sash 
herself,  that  morning,  at  the  store,  her 
father  allowing  her  to  choose  anything 
she  preferred,  for  staying  behind  with  Mr. 
McEwan.  It  was  a  rich  magenta  and  the 
great  amount  of  linen  in  its  composition 
gave  it  a  stiff  and  elegant  gloss  indeed. 
Abbie  considered  the  effect  against  her 
pink  gingham  dress  very  fine. 

She  had  a  fear  that  her  father  had  not 
tied  it  right,  though  it  had  taken  him  some 
time,  but  the  glass  hung  too  high  for  her 
to  get  a  view  of  it.  She  could  see  her  face 
however  and  since  it  was  smiling  at  her, 
she  smiled  back  at  it,  then  tipped  her  hat  a 
little  to  observe  the  effect  that  way. 

She  was  obliged  to  admit  that  her  hair 

7 


Abbie  Ann 

was  red ;  Mr.  McEwan  always  told  her  so, 
but  then  it  was  not  the  red  of  his,  and  it 
was  not  straight.  Abbie  Ann  called  hers 
"brown  red"  and  she  called  his  "red  red," 
and  she  consoled  herself  further  with  the 
fact  that  hers  curled. 

When  Mr.  McEwan  wanted  to  tease  he 
told  her  that  her  temper  was  the  color  of 
her  hair,  at  which  for  a  long  time  she  used 
to  stamp  her  foot,  but  lately  she  had 
stopped,  since  he  asked  if  that  did  not 
prove  what  he  said  ? 

The  glass  tilted  on  the  wall  also  showed 
Abbie's  cheeks  to  be  red,  and  her  eyes 
brown.  She  felt  she  would  hate  not  to  be 
as  pretty  as  she  was,  but  she  felt  also,  she 
would  feel  worse  to  have  Mr.  McEwan 
know  she  thought  she  was  pretty.  He  de 
clared  even  now  that  when  she  wore  a  new 
dress  or  a  new  hat  she  strutted.  On  all 
such  occasions  he  was  used  to  drawl : 

"How  loves  the  little  Abbie  Ann 
To  dress  so  fine  each  hour, 

8 


*  A— 


"  She  tried  to  see  her  new  sash" 


Abbie  Ann 

And  spend  her  money  for  a  fan 
Or  artificial  flower." 

When  Abbie  found  that  any  way  she  tip 
toed,  she  could  not  see  her  sash,  she  went 
out  on  the  platform.  She  had  her  new 
August  magazine,  but  the  platform  was 
reeking  and  resinous  even  in  this  early 
morning  sun,  so  fierce  was  the  day.  Across 
the  main  tracks  on  a  switch,  upon  which 
the  shadow  of  Black  Diamond  Mountain 
still  fell,  stood  a  flat-car.  A  few  tarpau 
lins  lay  together  on  it.  That  Abbie  was 
forbidden  to  play  on  the  tracks  or  to  walk 
on  the  switches  was  true  enough,  but  there 
are  always  reasons  to  apply  to  the  especial 
case  at  hand.  It  looked  cool  and  shady 
and  inviting  on  the  flat-car,  and  the  tar 
paulins  offered  a  comfortable  nook.  It 
was  n't  a  flat-car  suddenly,  as  she  looked 
over  at  it,  it  was  a  house,  her  own  little 
house  in  which  she  lived  and  looked  out  on 
the  rest  of  the  world. 

And  here  Abbie  jumped  down  off  the 
ii 


Abbie  Ann 

platform  and  ran  across  and  clambered  up 
on  it. 

It  was  snug,  and  cosy,  and  far-off,  even 
as  she  had  pictured,  and  crouching  down 
on  the  other  side  of  the  tarpaulins  she 
laughed  to  think  what  a  hunt  Mr.  McEwan 
would  have  when  he  came  to  look  for  her. 

She  would  not  let  him  hunt  too  long,  be 
cause  there  was  sure  to  be  an  apple  for 
her,  or  maybe  a  candy  pipe  if  he  had  been 
to  the  Junction  lately,  or  perhaps  a  choco 
late  mouse.  Once  it  had  been  popcorn, 
and  in  the  box  with  it  was  a  ring  set  with 
a  green  diamond.  Mr.  McEwan  said  it 
was  a  rare  thing,  a  green  diamond,  a  rare 
gem,  he  called  it.  Next  to  her  father, 
Abbie  was  sure  she  cared  most  for  him. 

While  Mr.  McEwan  had  been  at  college, 
he  became  sick.  Later  he  came  to  Coal 
City,  away  off  in  the  Allegheny  Moun 
tains  because  he  could  get  a  job  and  get 
well,  too.  At  first  he  used  to  say  he  meant 
to  go  back  to  college. 

12 


Abbie  Ann 

"When?"  Abbie  Ann  had  asked  him, 
for  even  that  long  ago  she  hated  to  spare 
him. 

"Some  time,"  he  always  assured  her. 

"Why  some  time,"  Abbie  had  worried 
him  to  know,  "Why  not  what  time?" 

"Because  time  's  money,"  Mr.  McEwan 
always  said. 

But  later  on  he  stopped  saying  he  was 
going.  Abbie  asked  him  why  again. 

"Because  I  'm  finding  time  is  n't,"  said 
he. 

"Is  n't  what?"  queried  Abbie. 

"Money." 

It  was  very  hard  to  follow  Mr.  McEwan 
sometimes.  Abbie  did  not  try  to  that  day. 
While  she  waited  for  him  to  come  hunting 
her,  she  read  her  magazine.  There  was  a 
discouraging  number  of  words  she  had  to 
spell.  Her  father  one  day  said  she  was 
backward  in  her  reading,  but  she  told  him 
he  was  wrong,  that  she  always  spelled 
right  ahead. 

13 


Abbie  Ann 

Somehow,  to-day,  the  reading  seemed 
harder  than  ever,  and  Abbie  found  it 
warmer  than  it  had  looked  in  the  car;  the 
click,  click,  click,  of  the  telegraph  instru 
ment  reached  her  far  off  and  faint,  and— 
presently  her  head  fell  over  against  the 
piled  up  tarpaulins  and  she  forgot  to  lift 
it, — and 

A  BUMP,  a  rush  of  air,  the  noise  of  a  loco 
motive  waked  her.  Scrambling  from  the 
tarpaulin  little  Abbie  Ann  stood  up,  but 
lost  her  balance  and  sat  down  again.  The 
flat-car  was  one  of  a  long  train  leaving 
the  switch,  Coal  City  already  behind,  its 
little  square  station  gleaming  yellow 
against  the  mountainous  background,  and 
growing  smaller  every  moment.  A  brake- 
man  was  walking  the  long  line  of  cars 
ahead.  Abbie  screamed  to  him,  but  her 
voice  was  lost  in  the  bumping  and  grind 
ing  of  the  brakes. 

Had  the  train  been  going  westward  to- 

14 


"  A  bump,  a  rush  of  air,  the  noise  of  a  locomotive  waked  her  " 


Abbie  Ann 

ward  the  Junction,  she  knew  she  could 
have  gotten  off  in  an  hour  and  waited  for 
the  afternoon  train  back  to  Coal  City,  but 
they  were  rushing  in  the  opposite  direc 
tion.  The  mountains  loomed  strange  and 
dark,  it  was  somber  in  this  defile  and  chill 
and  tunnel-like.  The  flat-car  jerked  and 
bumped. 

Abbie  Ann  swallowed  tears  and  lumps 
and  sulphur  smoke  all  together.  Ever 
after  she  never  knew  whether  terror 
meant  a  sulphur  taste  on  the  tongue,  or 
whether  a  sulphur  taste  brought  back  ter 
ror.  Or  does  a  falling-away  at  the  pit  of 
the  stomach  mean  both? 

She  screamed,  and  screamed  again  to 
the  vanishing  station,  and  choked  between 
times.  It  was  as  if,  across  the  increasing 
space,  she  yet  clung  with  desperate  little 
fingers  to  father,  to  Mr.  McEwan,  to  the 
known,  the  familiar,  the  habitual,  and  one 
by  one  the  fingers  were  being  torn  from 
their  hold. 

17 


Abbie  Ann 

She  screamed,  and  screamed  again,  then 
with  a  sudden  sense  of  futility  such  as  can 
come  even  to  a  baby,  the  little  red-headed 
girl  in  the  pink  dress  and  magenta  sash, 
with  the  grim  fir-clad  Alleghenies  looming 
either  side  over  her,  threw  herself  on  the 
gritty  car  floor  and  clung  to  the  tarpaulins 
and  cried  and  beat  with  her  feet  against 
the  boards.  It  was  rage.  Abbie  Ann  was 
one  to  shake  furious  little  fists  in  the  face 
of  contrary  Fortune. 

After  how  long  she  did  not  know,  little 
Abbie  clinging  to  the  tarpaulins  for  very 
terror  of  this  swaying,  rocking  fury  of  the 
rush  through  space,  sat  up. 

Not  long  before,  in  the  night,  her  father 
had  wrapped  her  in  a  blanket  and  carried 
her  to  the  window.  It  was  a  red-eyed 
monster,  with  a  fiery  trail  behind,  speed 
ing  through  the  skies,  she  looked  out  on, 
called  a  comet.  Herself  a  mere  speck  on 
the  trail  of  this  rushing  thing,  Abbie 
found  herself  thinking  of  that  monster 
18 


Abbie  Ann 

now.  Yet  seeing  trains  go  by  Coal  City 
every  day,  ordinarily  Abbie  Ann  called 
them  locomotives  and  freight  cars.  She 
even  knew  their  numbers  and  the  names  of 
the  engineers. 

With  a  gone  feeling  everywhere,  the 
small  object  on  the  flat-car  gazed  at  the 
flying  scene,  a  brawling  river  churning  it 
self  to  foam  on  one  side,  steep  walls  and 
dark-clad  slopes  of  mountains  on  the  other, 
and  each  moment  of  it  carrying  her  away 
from  father. 

She  even  thought  of  jumping,  but  she 
was  afraid.  The  cinders  fell  thick,  the 
rush  thundered  back  upon  her  in  the  echo. 
And  on  they  went,  over  bridges,  the  brawl 
ing  river  beneath,  through  tunnels  where 
the  smoke  blinded  and  choked  and  stran 
gled  the  little  numbed  soul  clutching  at 
safety  and  the  tarpaulins,  in  and  out  of  the 
gloom  and  somber  grandeur. 

At  last  when  rage  and  terror  and  the 
numb  despair  all  had  died  away  to  apathy, 

19 


Abbie  Ann 

when  she  could  not  even  cry,  as  the  train 
took  a  curve  Abbie  Ann  saw  the  brakeman 
traveling  over  his  route,  from  car  to  car. 
Do  things  always  begin  to  come  our  way 
when  once  we  have  given  in?  This  time 
the  brakeman  was  traveling  backward 
over  the  train.  He  reached  the  rear  end 
of  the  box-car  next  to  her  flat-car.  It  was 
Jim,  a  trainman  Abbie  had  talked  to  often, 
on  the  switch  at  Coal  City.  He  used  to 
smile  when  he  talked  and  his  eyes  and 
teeth,  all  shiny  white,  would  look  funny 
out  of  the  grime  of  his  face. 

"Jim,"  she  cried,  "Jim,  oh  Jim!"  Her 
little  voice,  naturally,  was  lost,  but  since  in 
her  joy  to  see  him,  she  had  crawled  out  to 
the  middle  of  the  swaying  flat-car,  why, 
Jim  as  he  climbed  down  saw  her.  Now 
one  is  not  looking  for  red-headed  little 
girls  to  roll  out  of  tarpaulins  on  a  freight 
train. 

"Great  Scott !"  he  roared,  almost  losing 
his  balance  in  the  suddenness  of  his  sur- 

20 


Jim,  the  brakeman,  finds  Abbie  Ann  on  the  flat-car 


Abbie  Ann 

prise.  Abbie  Ann  smiled  through  tears. 
It  was  different  now  Jim  had  come. 

"It  's  the  little  Coal  City  kid,"  he 
gasped. 

Abbie  Ann  explained  in  hysterical 
screams.  His  face  of  mingled  grime  and 
concern  made  her  laugh. 

Jim  bent  to  speak  to  her.  "Hold  on,"  he 
roared,  "wait  here  till  I  come  back." 

As  if  she  could  do  anything  else,  Jim 
was  so  funny,  but  everything  was  all  right 
now,  and  with  an  amazing  sudden  sense  of 
light-heartedness,  she  watched  him  go  on 
his  clambering  way.  It  was  Jim's  respon 
sibility  now.  Even  the  mountains  seemed 
lower.  Or  were  they  foothills  along  here? 

But  she  had  time  to  think  that  terrible 
things  had  befallen  him  before  he  re 
turned.  He  did  n't  come,  and  he  did  n't 
come.  Had  Jim  forgotten  her?  Had  he 
fallen  off  the  train?  Never,  never  would 
she  see  her  father  again. 

Just  then  he  came  clambering  back,  and 
2  23 


Abbie  Ann 

reaching  her,  sat  down  on  the  tarpaulin 
and  wiped  the  smoke  and  grime  from  his 
face. 

"We  're  going  to  put  you  on  the  pas 
senger  we  meet  at  Lynn,  at  five-ten.  We  're 
side-tracked  there.  That  '11  get  you  at  Coal 
City  at  eleven.  We  '11  telegraph  your 
father  our  next  stop.  It 's  three  now.  I 
reckon  he  's  about  crazy." 

"But  it  will  be  all  right  when  I  get 
there,"  said  the  now  cheerful  Abbie  Ann 
hopefully. 

AT  Lynn,  two  hours  later,  Jim  carried  her 
off,  and  took  her  over  to  the  hotel  and  got 
her  some  supper,  but  first  he  asked  a  girl 
there  to  wash  her  face.  Abbie  Ann  caught 
a  glimpse  of  it  in  a  gilt-framed  mirror  on 
the  wall.  Her  eyes  and  her  little  teeth 
gleamed  white  through  grime,  but  she  did 
not  laugh  as  she  had  when  it  was  Jim's 
face.  It  was  a  nice  girl  he  asked  this 
favor  of,  a  girl  with  red  cheeks,  and  she 
24 


Abbie  Ann 

even  stayed  while  Abbie  Ann,  perched  on 
a  high  stool  at  a  counter,  ate  supper.  Jim 
asked  her  how  she  would  like  a  ring  on  the 
order  of  Abbie  Ann's.  She  laughed.  "Go 
'long,"  she  said.  When  the  express  thun 
dered  in,  Jim  boarded  it  with  Abbie  Ann. 
His  own  train  was  puffing  on  the  switch. 
He  explained  the  matter  to  the  conductor, 
to  whom  Abbie  had  often  nodded  from  the 
Coal  City  platform. 

"Richardson  of  the  Black  Diamond? 
I  '11  see  she  reaches  him,"  he  said,  and  off 
into  the  night  the  Express  thundered 
westward.  They  reached  Coal  City  at 
eleven  where  the  conductor  handed  off  a 
plump,  red-headed  little  girl  half  asleep. 
In  her  arms  were  a  bag  of  candy,  one  of 
fruit,  a  toy  puzzle,  and  a  picture  paper, 
given  her  by  the  conductor,  the  porter,  the 
butcher  boy,  and  a  lady  on  the  sleeper. 
Abbie  Ann  had  quite  enjoyed  the  trip. 

She  saw  Mr.  McEwan  first.  His  hair 
was  standing  up  brushier  than  ever,  and 

25 


Abbie  Ann 

he  looked  strange  and  wild.  When  he 
grabbed  her  from  the  conductor,  the  clutch 
of  his  hand  hurt. 

"She  's  here! — and  safe! — "  he  called. 
And  then  his  breath  seemed  to  catch.  And 
as  the  Express  rushed  on  into  the  dark 
ness,  he  handed  her  over  to  her  father 
next  behind  him.  The  whole  of  Coal  City 
seemed  to  be  there  too,  men,  women,  visit 
ing  gentlemen  and  all.  They  had  been 
hunting  Abbie  from  noon  until  the  tele 
gram  came  in  the  afternoon. 

Generally  her  father  was  pre-occupied. 
Now  he  held  her  close. 

"My  little  girl,— my  little  girl,"  he 
kept  saying  under  his  breath,  all  the  way 
up  the  cinder  road,  while  the  strange  gen 
tlemen  followed  after,  past  the  coke  ovens, 
throwing  their  deep  glow  out  into  the 
darkness,  to  the  big  house  next  the  store, 
where  she  and  her  father  lived.  And  when 
for  answer,  Abbie  Ann  rubbed  her  cheek 
against  his,  she  found  his  was  wet. 
26 


II 


HE  next  evening  shortly  be 
fore  Abbie  Ann's  bedtime,  her 
father  pushed  his  books  aside 
and  wheeling  his  chair  around 
from  the  desk,  took  her  on  his  knee.  He 
had  his  office  at  home,  and  the  two  gener 
ally  spent  their  evenings  here,  he  at  work, 
she  with  her  dolls. 

There  was  a  space  between  the  wall  and 
the  end  of  the  desk  that  almost  seemed  to 
have  been  meant  for  a  doll-house,  and 
moreover  her  father  let  her  use  a  drawer 
of  the  desk  for  her  playthings. 

Once  a  lady  came  to  Coal  City  with  her 
husband  who  had  business  at  the  mine,  and 
they  stayed  over  night,  and  she  kept  say 
ing  "poor  child,"  and  every  time  she  said 
it  she  stroked  Abbie  Ann's  hair.  Then 
while  the  two  gentlemen  were  out,  she 
27 


Abbie  Ann 

brushed  up  .the  office  hearth,  and  put 
things  around  in  the  places  where  she  said 
they  ought  to  be.  The  office  being  at 
home,  there  was  no  covering  except  a  coat 
of  paint  on  the  floor,  or  on  the  floor  of  the 
hall.  The  color  of  the  soil  of  Coal  City  is 
red,  and  red  clay  foot-prints  on  a  painted 
floor  show  discouragingly.  After  the 
lady  had  brushed  around  for  a  while,  she 
gave  up,  and  saying  "poor  child"  some 
more,  bade  Abbie  Ann  bring  all  her  stock 
ings  that  she  might  darn  them. 

Afterward  Abbie  asked  her  father  why 
the  lady  said  "poor  child,"  but  he  only 
looked  out  of  the  window  across  the  valley 
and  did  not  reply.  Unless  she  was  in  a 
temper,  whenever  she  saw  her  father 
glance  in  that  way  out  across  the  valley, 
Abbie  Ann  changed  the  subject,  for  some 
thing  seemed  to  tell  her  then  that  father 
was  worried.  So  she  saved  the  question, 
and  later  asked  Mr.  McEwan  why  the  lady 
had  said  "poor  child." 
28 


Abbie  Ann 

That  person,  surveying  small  Abbie 
Ann,  lifted  his  forehead  in  ridges  and 
gazed  debatingly.  Her  hair  was  in  tangle, 
one  shoe-string  was  broken  and  the  tongue 
of  the  shoe  hung  loose;. there  was  red  clay 
on  her  stockings,  and  a  long  scratch  on  her 
face,  results  of  a  scramble  up  the  moun 
tain  side  for  blackberries ;  also  there  was  a 
slit  in  her  dress  skirt  where  a  briar  had 
caught  it. 

"Because,"  said  Mr.  McEwan  solemnly, 
"there  is  so  little  demand  on  the  market 
for  young  savages." 

But  this  had  been  some  time  before,  in 
one  of  the  intervals  between  teachers. 

This  evening  Abbie  Ann's  father,  push 
ing  his  ledger  away,  lifted  her  to  his  knee. 
'Now  her  father  was  that  sort  of  person 
who,  a  dripping  umbrella  in  his  hand, 
stands  in  a  doorway  and  looks  helplessly 
around  until  the  women  folk  rush  to  him 
and  take  it.  But  there  were  no  women 
folk  to  take  care  of  him  and  Abbie  Ann. 
29 


Abbie  Ann 

Her  father  loved  the  small  bundle  of  her 
self,  tears,  smudges,  and  all,  better  even 
than  he  himself  knew,  better  than  all  else 
in  the  world,  but  he  did  n't  know  what  to 
do  with  her.  His  attitude  with  Abbie  Ann 
was  very  like  that  of  himself  with  the  um 
brella. 

He  lifted  her  to  his  knee  now  and 
stroked  her  hair  awkwardly.  It  made  her 
think  of  the  lady.  She  endured  it,  hopeful 
that  it  would  n't  last  long.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  it  was  not  natural  to  her  father 
that  it  made  her  embarrassed.  She  was 
right.  It  stopped. 

"How  brave  to  do  her  duty  is  my  wilful 
offspring?"  suddenly  he  inquired. 

Now  wilful  offspring  meant  Abbie  Ann. 
It  was  what  still  another  lady  brought  to 
Coal  City  to  teach  her,  had  called  her. 

She  had  no  idea  what  wilful  offspring 
meant,  but  she  did  know  that  the  lady  had 
not  meant  it  to  be  complimentary. 

"How  brave?"  father  was  repeating. 

30 


Abbie  Ann 

Abbie  Ann  thought  of  the  day  before  on 
the  freight  train. 

"Not  so  brave,"  she  concluded. 

Which  evidently  was  disconcerting. 
Her  father  began  to  stroke  her  hair  again, 
and  Abbie  to  endure  it.  "But  brave 
enough,  I  am  sure,  to  stand  by  her  duty  ?" 
he  suggested. 

He  spoke  so  uneasily,  and  it  sounded  so 
conciliatory  that  Abbie  Ann  grew  dubious. 
His  voice  sounded  solemn  too,  almost  as  if 
they  were  in  church,  which  in  itself  was 
an  alarming  sensation,  Coal  City  having 
Church  at  the  most,  perhaps  three  times  a 
year,  when  a  minister  could  be  secured. 

"Brave  enough,  I  am  sure,"  said  father, 
"to  stand  by  her  duty." 

"I,— I  don't  know,"  'faltered  Abbie  Ann. 

"For  tather  has  made  up  his  mind  to  be 
brave  enough  to  show  his  little  daughter 
her  duty,"  he  continued.  But  here  he 
paused  so  long,  and  appeared  to  be  ponder 
ing  so  hard  that  Abbie  Ann  to  show  how 

31 


Abbie  Ann 

entirely  at  ease  and  free  from  embarrass 
ment  she  was  began  to  twist  his  mustache 
to  stand  out,  a  sharp  point  each  side  above 
his  pointed  beard.  Then  when  he  looked 
at  her  so  earnestly  above  the  fierce  mus 
tache,  Abbie  forgot  she  was  embarrassed 
and  laughed. 

"Such  a  little  girl,"  said  her  father, 
hopelessly,  "such  a  little  child." 

"I  was  only  pretending,"  she  hastened 
to  assure  him,  "I  'm  listening." 

"And  it  is  only  for  a  few  years  at  most," 
her  father  then  said,  as  if  continuing  a 
former  thought ;  was  he  talking  to  her  or 
to  himself? 

"What 's  for  a  few  years  ?"  asked  Abbie 
Ann. 

At  this  he  seemed  to  come  back  to  her 
and  hastened  to  stroke  her  hair.  "I  have 
been  meditating  it  for  some  time,"  he  con 
fessed,  even  guiltily,  "and  yesterday's  hap 
pening  determined  me." 

But  it  was  to  be  seen  that  Abbie  Ann's 

32 


Abbie  Ann 

tall  bearded  parent  viewed  the  inquiring- 
eyed  object  on  his  knee  with  considerable 
apprehension.  He  also  continued  to  stroke 
her  hair  vigorously. 

"I  am  going  to  take  you  away  from  Coal 
City  and  put  you  at  school,"  he  told  her. 

There  was  a  pause,  during  which  there 
seemed  to  be  no  support  under  Abbie  Ann ; 
there  was  a  singing  in  her  ears  and  a  dry- 
ness  in  her  mouth.  Coal  City  meant  all 
she  knew.  "Away"  meant  that  unknown 
void  and  desolation  the  cars  were  rush 
ing  toward  yesterday,  and  its  inhabitants 
were  summed  up  in  the  lady  who  called 
her  "poor  child"  and  made  her  uncomfor 
table. 

"But  I  don't  want  to  go  to  school,"  she 
rejoined,  and  her  voice  sounded  so  far  off, 
even  to  herself,  and  strange,  that  she 
threw  herself  upon  him  and  clung  to  him 
suddenly  and  fiercely,  "I  don't  want  to  go 
to  school,  I  don't  want  to." 

Father  said  nothing.    The  silence  was 

33 


Abbie  Ann 

alarming.  She  burrowed  her  head  deeper 
into  his  coat  collar,  "Why  can't  I  have  a 
teacher  here?"  came  up  in  muffled  tones 
from  Abbie  Ann. 

"We  have  tried  it,  and  how  long  have 
they  stayed  ?" 

It  sounded  as  if  it  meant  what  it  said, 
his  voice  this  time. 

"They  stayed  longer  than  the  cooks," 
came  up  from  Abbie  Ann,  sulkily,  and  un 
wisely;  for  the  number  of  cooks  brought 
to  Coal  City  for  the  superintendent's 
household,  from  all  points  far  and  near, 
had  become  a  jocular  matter  up  and  down 
the  railroad;  none  could  or  would  stand 
the  isolation  of  the  life.  Her  father  had 
grown  as  sensitive  about  cooks  as  was 
Abbie  about  teachers. 

So  at  this  he  spoke  decidedly.  Perhaps 
the  allusion  nettled  him. 

"The  teaching  is  not  all,"  he  said,  "you 
need  to  be  with  other  children,"  he  was 
quoting  the  words  of  the  lady,  "and  you 

34 


Abbie  Ann 

need  to  have  what  only  different  surround 
ings  can  give  you." 

"I  don't,"  said  Abbie  Ann.  There  was 
no  doubt  as  to  the  finality  of  her  utterance. 
She  had  slipped  down  from  his  knee  and 
stood,  firm  planted  on  the  floor.  A  red 
spot  was  burning  on  either  cheek.  Sud 
denly  she  stamped  her  foot,  and  stamped 
again;  then  she  seized  the  nearest  thing, 
which  chanced  to  be  her  youngest  child, 
and  flung  the  luckless  infant  across  the 
room.  This  done,  simultaneously,  as  it 
were,  with  the  dull  thud  of  its  unhappy 
head  against  the  wall,  Abbie  Ann  threw 
herself  upon  the  floor,  prone,  and  beat 
with  her  small  hands  and  feet  thereon. 

It  was  not  the  first  time  this  big  man 
had  watched  his  little  daughter  thus,  nor 
yet  the  first  time  he  had  wondered  what  he 
ought  to  do  about  it;  he  had  met  a  mine 
disaster  with  a  promptness  that  saved  his 
men's  lives;  he  had  averted  a  strike  by  a 
just  grasp  of  the  situation ;  he  had  quelled 

35 


Abbie  Ann 

a  riot  in  a  neighboring  district  during  the 
miseries  of  actual  strike  there;  but  these 
things  were  a  matter  of  course,  in  mere 
line  with  a  man's  work,  and  he  thought  no 
more  about  them.  But  what  to  do  with 
one  small  daughter  who  flung  herself  on 
the  floor  and  beat  with  her  fists  and  feet 
thereon,  this  big  man  did  not  know. 

Meanwhile  the  heap  of  red  tangles, 
skirts,  arms  and  legs,  there  before  him, 
began  to  be  shaken  by  sobs.  Abbie  Ann 
usually  grew  more  reasonable  at  the  weep 
ing  stage.  Her  father  gazed  down  upon 
her.  Those  small  moaned  "ohs,"  on  his 
little  daughter's  lips  hurt  him  surpris 
ingly.  He  would  try  reason.  He  offered 
it  somewhat  diffidently,  seeing  that  Ab 
bie  Ann  had  a  disconcerting  way  of  reject 
ing  it. 

"Suppose/'  he  said,  "that  I  failed  in  my 
duty  to  you  now,  and  lived  to  feel  my  own 
and  your  reproaches?" 

His  little  girl,  sitting  up  at  this  to  listen, 

36 


Abbie  Ann 

here  shook  her  head  violently,  so  violently 
the  red  curls  flung  about  wildly.  She 
was  hazy  as  to  what  it  was  he  might  some 
day  feel,  but  from  her  position,  it  was  saf 
est  to  combat  everything.  "That  would  n't 
never,  never  be, — "  she  stated,  with  gen 
eral  vagueness  of  statement,  but  much  de 
cision. 

But  her  father  thought  differently,  and 
said  moreover  that  she  was  too  young  to 
know. 

"And  further,"  he  added,  "it  is  my 
daughter's  duty  to  help  father  to  do  his." 
He  spoke  so  solemnly  it  might  have  been 
Church  again.  Abbie  Ann  hugged  her 
knees.  It  would  never  do  to  weaken  now. 

But  he  went  on.  The  words  seemed  to 
come  with  effort  at  first,  but  later,  some 
thing  came  into  them  that  made  them 
easier.  Was  it  tenderness?  Or  was  it  sad 
laughter  ? 

"Once  Abbie  Ann — there  was  a  little 
girl  with  hair  and  eyes  like  yours.  She 

37 


Abbie  Ann 

lived  in  a  city,  and  used  to  come  by  a  cer 
tain  gate  every  day,  the  last  little  girl  in 
the  procession  coming  from  a  neighboring 
boarding-school  for  the  daily  walk.  There 
was  a  boy  generally  hanging  on  that  gate, 
who  in  time  that  little  girl  came  to  nod  to. 
Perhaps, — some  day, — you  may  be  shown 
some  medals  and  some  prize  books  laid 
away  by  persons  who  loved  this  little  girl, 
that  will  prove  to  you  how  faithfully  she 
did  her  duty." 

Abbie  Ann  had  wriggled  along  the  floor, 
still  embracing  her  knees,  the  better  to 
hear.  Now  she  got  up  and  leaned  against 
her  father's  knee.  The  story  rather  than 
the  moral  of  it,  had  seized  her. 

"Who  was  she,  the  little  girl,  father?" 

"Your  mother,  Abbie." 

There  was  a  silence.  Nobody  spoke. 
Little  as  she  had  been,  Abbie  Ann  seemed 
to  herself  to  remember, — 

Therefore  she  rose  up  and  flung  herself 
upon  him  and  wetted  his  poor  collar  with 

.38 


Once,  Abbie  Ann — there  was  a  little  girl  with  hair  and 
eyes  like  yours  " 


Abbie  Ann 

a  fresh  burst  of  tears ;  "I  '11  be  good,  I  '11 
be  good,—"  she  whispered. 

"I  know,  I  know, — "  said  father,  in  re 
turn,  gathering  her  up,  and  this  time  for 
getting  to  stroke  her  hair. 

Then  Abbie  Ann  sat  up.  Had  she 
known  her  little  nose  was  puffed  like  a  ripe 
red  cherry,  she  might  have  been  discon 
certed. 

"Who  was  the  little  boy?"  she  asked. 
She  liked  that  story. 

"His  name  in  those  days,  was,  Johnnie, 
Johnnie  Richardson." 

Abbie  Ann  laughed  delightedly.  It  was 
father  himself,  that  boy;  father's  name 
was  John  Richardson ! 

He  was  saying  more:  "And  I  have 
chosen  to  send  you  to  this  same  school,  be 
cause  the  same  teacher  is  there  who  taught 
your  mother?  Will  this  help  you  to  go 
and  try  to  be  happy?" 

He  never  had  talked  just  this  way  to 
her  before.  She  felt  solemn,  and  began  to 

41 


Abbie  Ann 

cry  a  little  again,  but  sobbed  her  willing 
ness  to  try. 

And  it  was  settled,  and  big,  bearded 
John  Richardson  drew  a  breath. 


42 


Ill 


HERE  were  other  reasons  why 
Abbie  Ann's  father  had  con 
cluded  she  would  be  better  at 
school;  indeed,  he  could  have 
found  very,  very  good  ones  happening  al 
most  any  day.  She  remembered  several 
herself,  or,  rather,  would  like  not  to  have 
remembered  them. 

For  instance,  there  was  the  time  the 
Bishop  came  to  hold  service.  It  is  not 
often  such  a  thing  happens  to  miners  as 
having  a  Bishop  come,  but  this  one  had 
been  doing  so  at  intervals  since  the  men 
built  themselves  a  church. 

His  stay  over  night  was  with  Mr.  Rich 
ardson  and  Abbie  Ann,  and  even  with 
limitations  as  to  cooks  and  available 
sources  of  marketing  supplies,  a  household 

43 


Abbie  Ann 

is  driven  to  make  preparations  for  a 
Bishop,  or  at  least  into  trying  to  do  so.  It 
was  winter  and  there  was  mountain  mut 
ton  secured  from  a  farmer,  and  a  wild 
turkey  and  what  'Mr.  McEwan  called 
trimmings.  Unfortunately  there  was  dam 
son-plum  preserves  too,  with  the  seeds  left 
in,  which  the  wife  of  one  of  the  miners 
had  sent  up  with  pride  for  the  occasion, 
and  which  was  put  on  the  table  in  a  glass 
dish  as  a  trimming  also. 

Now  damson  preserve  with  the  seed 
left  in,  is  an  insidious  thing,  as  Abbie  Ann 
saw  it;  it  is  a  game,  and  you  win  or  not, 
according  to  the  generous  instincts  of  the 
person  helping  you.  The  damsons,  and 
the  saucers  for  them,  were  near  the  Bishop 
and  he  kindly  served  them. 

He  was  a  bearded  little  man,  genial  and 
kindly,  and  helping  Abbie,  as  the  lady, 
first,  he  helped  her  genially  which  means 
generously.  Then  he  and  her  father  and 
Mr.  McEwan  returned  to  their  talk  of  im- 

44 


Abbie  Ann 

ported  foreign  labor  and  scabs,  and  topics 
common  to  mining-town  conversation. 

The  game  based  on  damson  preserves 
is  this :  having  separated  the  fruit,  once  it 
is  in  your  mouth,  from  the  seed  by  means 
of  your  tongue,  you  swallow  the  delicacy 
and  store  the  other  away  in  the  pouch  of 
your  cheek,  squirrel-fashion,  and  repeat 
the  operation,  the  game  being  to  empty 
the  saucer  without  at  all  removing  a  seed 
from  your  cheek  pouches.  Do  you  suc 
ceed  in  thus  retaining  all  to  the  last  spoon 
ful,  you  win,  and  you  thereupon  retire 
from  the  table  and,  seeking  isolation,  pro 
ceed  to  count  how  many  plums  the  saucer 
contained.  Should  the  distribution  of  the 
delicacy  have  been  very  liberal,  the  cheeks 
of  the  gamester  gradually  assume  a  dis 
tension  alarmingly  suggestive  of  mumps, 
while  the  eyes  above  them  seem  to  imply 
asphyxiation  or  strangulation.  Still,  it  is 
a  beautiful  game. 

The  Bishop  helped  Abbie  liberally,  oh, 

45 


Abbie  Ann 

quite  liberally,  and  then  went  on  with  his 
talking.  If  he  had  only  kept  on  with  it,  all 
might  have  ended  well,  but  he  did  not. 
Having  exhausted  the  subjects  of  union 
men  and  scabs,  and  being  a  kindly  gen 
tleman,  he  turned  to  say  a  pleasant  and 
playful  word  to  his  host's  little  daugh 
ter. 

"Heaven  bless  my  soul,"  cried  the  star 
tled  Bishop,  not  at  all  meaning  to  be  un- 
devout.  It  was  that  critical  stage  in  the 
plum  game,  you  see,  preceding  the  last 
spoonful,  and  suggestive  of  strained  eye 
balls  and  strangulation,  for  the  Bishop 
had  helped  liberally. 

"Heaven  bless  my  soul,"  he  cried  in 
alarm,  "Richardson,  look  at  your  child !" 

And  then  it  happened.  Whether  she  tried 
to  speak  and  choked,  or  to  cry  and  stran 
gled,  Abbie  could  n't  decide,  even  after 
ward.  But  whichever  it  may  have  been, 
it  had  all  the  effect  of  an  explosion.  Plum 
seeds  shot  everywhere!  Mr.  McEwan 
says  it  was  a  plum  seed  that  fractured  the 


Abbie  Ann 

outer  edge  of  his  spectacle  glass.  It  was 
funny,  oh,  very  funny !  that  is,  to  every  one 
but  Abbie  Ann  and  her  father,  he  being 
overly  sensitive  about  matters  concerning 
his  little  daughter's  deportment.  Between 
them,  damson  preserves  were  not  men 
tioned  by  one  to  the  other  for  days  to 
come. 

Then  there  was  the  episode  with  Aunt 
Venus's  Willyum.  Aunt  Venus  was  elderly 
and  colored,  and  had  been  induced  to  come 
up  from  Huntington  to  cook,  agreeing  to 
do  so,  provided  she  might  bring  one  of  her 
daughter's  children  for  company.  Will 
yum  was  the  one  she  brought.  You  'd 
have  gathered  from  this  she  had  pleasure 
in  the  society  of  her  grandchild,  a  small 
person  with  deferentially  rolling  eyes  and 
an  agility  in  dodging  cuffs  and  heavy- 
handed  slaps,  unbelievable. 

The  chief  fault  Aunt  Venus  seemed  to 
find  in  him,  now  that  she  had  him  here, 
was  that  he  got  under  her  feet,  and  her 
remedy  for  the  same  was  curdling. 

47 


Abbie  Ann 

"Keep  outen  f'om  under  my  way,"  she 
would  direfully  adjure  him,  at  intervals 
through  the  day,  "or  I  '11  slap  the  taste 
clean  outen  yo'  mouf !" 

And  if  Aunt  Venus  threatened  him, 
Abbie  Ann  brow-beat  the  undersized 
Willyum  to  a  degree  of  servile  docility. 
Mr.  McEwan  told  her  she  did. 

"What  's  servile  docility?"  she  asked 
him,  interested. 

"The  result  of  the  other  person  wanting 
everything  her  own  way,"  Mr.  McEwan 
assured  her.  She  gathered  from  this,  he 
meant  the  other  person  to  be  her.  But  all 
Abbie  Ann  could  recall  that  she  did,  was 
to  decide  what  games  they  should  play, 
after  which  Willyum  meekly  played  them. 

One  of  the  natural  avocations  of  Will- 
yum's  race  is  to  barber.  Abbie  had  seen 
them  doing  it  down  at  Hinton.  To  barber, 
the  operator  stands  in  a  white  jacket  be 
hind  a  velvet  chair,  and  in  time  the  person 
in  the  chair  arises  shorn. 

48 


Abbie  Ann 

Father's  chair  could  be  made  to  answer 
as  the  velvet  one  for  the  game  .purpose, 
and  an  outgrown  pique  coat  of  Abbie's 
would  serve  for  the  jacket,  and  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan,  now  the  weather  was  so  warm,  had 
lately  been  using  an  instrument  he  called 
a  clipper,  on  the  long-haired  coat  of 
father's  old  dog,  Wolf.  As  has  been  set 
forth,  Abbie  Ann  was  a  moderately  long 
haired  small  creature  herself,  her  curls 
being  fine  and  tangly  and  abundant. 

Now  whether  it  was  innocence  on  the 
hounded  Willyum's  part,  or  zeal  in  play 
ing  the  game,  or  revenge  sweetly  born  in 
him  at  the  moment  and  direfully  executed, 
none  can  say.  Willyum  was  a  silent,  or 
at  best  a  monosyllabic  creature.  But, 
being  mounted  on  a  box  and  told  to  barber, 
he  barbered,  apparently  with  no  know 
ledge  of  a  distinction  between  scalp  and 
hair.  And  clippers  once  enmeshed  in  a 
tousled  tangle  of  curly  fine  hair,  hang  en- 
webbed  and  pulling  by  their  own  weight 

49 


Abbie  Ann 

even  after  the  operator  has  been  compelled 
by  the  shrieks  of  the  victim  to  desist,  and 
the  victim  wails  lustily. 

The  results  were  considerable.  To  be 
sure,  father  could  strip  the  several  scalp 
wounds  with  court  plaster,  but  it  takes  a 
real,  not  a  play,  barber,  which  means  a 
trip  down  to  Hinton  to  find  one,  to  prop 
erly  reduce  a  partially  chewed-off  head  of 
curls  to  a  uniformity  of  evenly  clipped 
fleece.  And  Abbie  Ann  was  n't  near  so 
pretty  as  she  had  decided  she  was,  seen 
with  a  clipped  fleece  and  court-plaster 
strips  paralleling  her  crown. 

There  were  other  regrettable  occur 
rences  recorded  of  Abbie  Ann,  too.  Fa 
ther's  Wolf  was  not  the  only  pet,  for  Abbie 
had  several  herself,  yapping  puppies 
and  lame  and  decrepit  roosters  and  such. 
Whenever  the  miners'  children  met  a 
point  in  the  parental  humor  where  their 
pets  were  threatened  or  forbidden,  they 
brought  them  to  Abbie  for  presents.  And, 

50 


Abbie  Ann 

owing  to  her  obliging  disposition,  so 
Mr.  McEwan  put  it,  she  took  everything 
of  all  natures  anybody  brought,  from  lame 
dogs  and  sick  cats,  land  terrapins  and 
young  screech-owls,  to  the  measles.  He 
said  the  only  thing  she  drew  the  line  at 
taking,  was  precautions. 

The  sick  cat  which  she  accepted,  in  time 
recovered;  that  is,  in  all  but  its  nerves, 
which  remained  uncertain.  The  cat  could 
hardly  be  blamed,  therefore,  when  Abbie, 
on  tip-toe,  and  feeling  along  the  mantel 
above  her  head  for  one  thing,  knocked  an 
other,  which  chanced  to  be  a  tall,  quart, 
stone-ware  jug  affair  of  ink— uncorked, 
of  course — off  the  mantel-shelf  and  on  to 
the  arm-chair  wherein  the  nervous  cat  was 
slumbering.  The  cat  wildly  fled,  true,  but 
not  before  the  descending  inky  flood  had 
considerably  deluged  and  endyed  it,  mak 
ing  in  a  straight  line  for  the  nearest  exit, 
an  indelible  path  of  flight  left  behind, 
which  means  it  went  right  up  on  and 

51 


Abbie  Ann 

across  the  bed  whereon  the  week's  clean 
laundry,  brought  home  by  a  miner's  wife, 
lay  outspread.  It  was  a  pity,  too,  that 
father's  shirts  and  handkerchiefs  and  the 
tablecloths  should  have  been  uppermost. 
The  flight  of  an  inky  cat  across  such 
things  is  unmistakable. 

It  was  bad,  too,  when  Abbie  Ann  took 
the  measles,  though  it  fortunately  was  one 
of  those  times  when  a  teacher  was  tem 
porarily  residing  with  them,  who  could 
take  care  of  her.  But  since  this  person's 
attitude  seemed  to  be  that  the  sick  person 
was  somehow  to  blame  in  the  matter  and 
in  disgrace  accordingly,  it  was  not  a  pleas 
ant  time  to  look  back  upon.  The  lady's 
frame  of  mind  also  seemed  to  be  that 
Abbie  could  have  helped  taking  measles  if 
she  had  wanted  to.  And  then  she  took 
them  herself !  Whereupon  her  attitude  of 
mind  promptly  veered  to  where  it  held  Ab 
bie  Ann  again  responsible  for  that!  And 
when  she  got  better,  she  indignantly  went. 

52 


Abbie  Ann 

And  so  from  these  things,  you  can  see 
that  Abbie  Ann's  father  had  a  right  to  feel 
it  was  better  that  his  little  daughter  should 
be  taken  away  to  school. 

Once  before  when  the  subject  had  been 
partially  broached,  Mr.  McEwan  said  if 
he  were  not  so  busy,  he  would  teach  her 
himself!  He  always  had  had  ideas,  he 
said,  on  proper  methods  in  teaching.  In 
spelling,  for  instance,  he  said,  always  em 
phasize  the  lesson  by  use  of  the  object 
spelled.  If  b,  o,  x  was  put  forward  suc 
cessfully  by  the  pupil  as  the  spelling  of  the 
same,  Mr.  McEwan's  idea  was,  as  teacher, 
to  produce  the  box.  The  pupil  next  ad 
vancing  the  claim  that  g,  u,  m  spelled  gum, 
and  d,  r,  o,  p  spelled  drop,  the  lid  should 
then  be  lifted  to  disclose  rows  of  'em  in 
side,  pink  and  white,  to  be  consumed 
thoughtfully  and  earnestly  while  the 
teacher  gave  a  lesson  on  the  cohesive  and 
resistant  properties  of  gum. 

Abbie  Ann  agreed  that  his  ideas  were 

53 


Abbie  Ann 

prepossessing.  She  fetched  her  reader, 
with  the  page  corner  turned  down  at  the 
last  list  of  spelling  words  preceding  the 
attack  of  measles. 

"How  would  you  do  them?"  she  asked 
him,  interestedly. 

He  looked  at  the  list,  and  then  he  looked 
at  her,  hurt.  He  said  it  would  take  time, 
of  course,  to  plan  his  ideas  in  detail,  but 
she  ought  not  to  have  showed  lack  of 
faith. 

She  assured  him  that  it  was  not  lack  of 
faith,  and  it  was  n't,  though  the  list  began 
with  cherubim  and  ended  with  Himalaya, 
and  had  such  words  as  would,  could,  and 
should,  amidways.  Her  faith  in  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan  was  far  larger  than  such  a  mild  test 
of  it  as  that ! 

There  was  country  school  for  three 
months  in  the  winter  for  the  miners'  chil 
dren,  and  the  term  opening  just  after  the 
retirement  of  the  private  teacher,  Abbie, 
for  the  time  being,  went  there.  She  came 

54 


Abbie  Ann 

home  with  a  lesson  in  penmanship  copied 
on  her  slate  over  which  Mr.  McEwan 
shook  his  head.  Perhaps  he  was  jealous 
of  country-school  methods.  The  teacher 
had  set  the  copy,  which  said: 

"Old  King  Coal  was  a  merry  old  soul." 

Mr.  McEwan  objected  to  the  spelling  of 
the  name,  but  then,  of  course,  he  allowed, 
you  had  to  remember  the  young  man 
teacher,  in  his  off  times,  was  a  miner,  and 
was  to  be  excused  for  evident  prejudice  on 
the  subject. 

But  now  all  these  familiar  affairs  of 
every  day  were  to  be  left  behind  and  Abbie 
Ann  was  to  go  away  to  school,  having 
agreed  with  father  to  do  so. 


55 


IV 


UT  the  going  did  not  seem 
possible  by  the  next  day,  and 
Abbie  Ann  kept  her  face  swol 
len  by  weeping  afresh  every 
time  she  thought  about  it,  feeling  herself 
to  be  a  mistreated  little  girl  sent  off  into 
the  great,  terrifying  world  with  no  one 
caring,  a  little  girl  gotten  rid  of  by  being 
put  at  a  terrible  place  called  a  school. 
Very  well,  she  would  go,  since  she  had 
promised,  she  would  go,  but  once  there  she 
would  cry  herself  ill,  oh,  very  ill,  and  per 
haps  die,  and — 

At  this  point  Abbie  Ann  burst  into  tears 
again. 

Mr.  McEwan  came  up  that  evening  to 
supper  as  he  often  did,  in  order  he  said, 
to  help  them  out. 

56 


Abbie  Ann 

This  was  because  of  a  peculiarity  of 
Fabe,  the  cook,  whom  Mr.  McEwan  had 
brought  from  Washington  on  returning 
from  his  vacation  some  time  before.  Fabe 
having  hitherto  officiated  in  restaurants 
and  boarding-bowses,  said  he  did  not  know 
how  'to  cook  for  two,  and  true  enough, 
when  he  made  for  instance  a  pudding,  it 
was  so  liberal  an  affair  that  Mr.  Richard 
son  and  Abbie  Ann  continued  to  eat  pud 
ding  day  after  day  until  it  was  gone.  In 
a  way  it  might  have  been  said  to  save  Fabe 
trouble,  and  it  was  owing  to  this  pecu 
liarity  that  Mr.  McEwan  said  he  came  to 
meals  to  help  them  out. 

This  evening  after  supper  they  sat  on 
the  side  porch.  One  did  not  see  the  station 
from  here,  or  the  chutes,  or  the  coke  ovens, 
only  the  anvil-shaped  valley  with  the  en 
closing  mountains  making  a  purple  rim 
around.  Across  on  the  opposite  slope  of 
the  valley  stood  the  church,  ugly,  it  is 
true,  but  the  miners  had  built  it  them- 

57 


Abbie  Ann 

selves ;  there  was  a  graveyard  by  the  side 
of  the  church  and  in  it  a  tall  white  shaft. 
Abbie  Ann's  young  mother  lay  beneath 
that  shaft;  it  was  while  she  was  among 
them  that  the  miners  had  built  the  church. 

Out  on  the  porch  this  evening  Abbie 
Ann  told  Mr.  McEwan  about  her  going 
away  for  he  had  been  talking  business  to 
her  father  all  through  supper,  and  she  had 
had  no  opportunity  to  tell  him  before ;  her 
father,  cigar  in  hand,  listened,  too,  and 
very  cruel,  and  very  terrible  it  sounded, 
the  way  she  stated  it.  Somehow,  by 
the  time  she  reached  the  end,  she  felt 
ashamed. 

But  Mr.  McEwan  was  making  notes  on 
the  back  of  an  envelop.  "Albemarle 
County  pippins,  maple  sugar,  hickory 
nuts, — "  he  was  muttering. 

"What?"  Abbie  Ann  asked  him. 

"H'm,"  he  was  still  jotting  down,  "did 
you  speak, — oh, — to  be  sure,  I  was  plan 
ning  for  the  Thanksgiving  box;  but  that 

58 


Abbie  Ann 

is  proceeding  too  fast,  you  have  n't  gone 

yet,-" 

"Box?"  asked  Abbie. 

Mr.  McEwan  blinked,  and  his  red  head 
nodded  across  at  her  red  head  confiden 
tially.  "At  Thanksgiving,"  said  he,  "and 
at  Christmas,  and  on  birthdays,  and  at 
Easter;  what  else  did  you  suppose  board 
ing-schools  were  for  ?  And  you  lock  your 
door,  having  admitted  six  or  more  of  your 
really  bosom  friends,  and  stealthily  open 
ing  the  box,  you  feast  as  the  clock  tells  the 
midnight  hour — " 

This  was  a  new  phase  of  things. 
"Really?"  asked  Abbie  Ann. 

Mr.  McEwan  turned  his  head;  he  was 
sitting  on  the  porch  railing  smoking.  "Oh, 
Fabe,"  he  called. 

That  person  came  out  from  the  dining- 
room;  he  was  very  black  and  very  shiny 
and  he  wore  a  paper  cap.  When  he  first 
arrived  at  Coal  City  he  said  his  name  was 
Fabe  Winbush;  but  Mr.  McEwan  said 

59 


Abbie  Ann 

that  he  was  too  modest  to  tell  it  all,  that 
the  whole  of  it  was  Fabacious  Vespucious 
McGruder  Daniel  Winbush. 

Abbie  Ann  asked  Fabe  if  it  really  was, 
whereupon  he  showed  all  his  teeth,  but  he 
never  said. 

When  he  came  to  the  door  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan  demanded,  "How  about  a  cake, 
Fabe  ?  None  of  your  little  miching  meas 
urements,  either,  but  an  ample,  sizable, 
cake-walking  article,  pink  and  white  per 
haps,  and  fruity,  and  say,  nutty,  within?" 

Fabe  grinned,  as  indeed  he  always  did 
at  Mr.  McEwan.  "Th'  ain't  no  trouble 
'bout  its  being  sizable,  if  it  's  a  big  cake 
you  want,— 

"And  candy,"  said  he,  "the  real  thing  in 
Allegheny  maple  sugar  with  hickory  nut 
meats  through.  I  mean  to  scour  the  moun 
tains  for  the  nuts  myself."  » 

But  after  Mr.  McEwan  had  gone,  the 
shamed  feeling  came  back  upon  Abbie  that 
she  had  not  been  honest.  She  went  slowly 
60 


Mr.  McEwan  was  making  notes  on  the  back  of  an  envelop  " 


Abbie  Ann 

and  stood  by  her  father  who  was  on  the 
settee,  his  arm  stretched  along  the  railing. 

"I  won't,"  she  said,  "I  won't  any  more," 
and  she  touched  his  hand  on  the  baluster. 
His  closed  on  hers.  Then  he  lifted  her  to 
the  bench  by  him. 

In  the  valley  below  them  a  mist  was 
floating  over  the  low  lands.  The  young 
moon  shining  down  upon  it  made  it  a 
moving  silver  sea.  But  above  the  mists, 
on  the  opposite  slope  across  the  valley, 
stood  the  shaft,  tall  and  gleaming.  Abbie 
sat  very  still,  she  had  no  idea  why.  The 
sheep  bells  from  some  hillside  tinkled 
faintly.  It  hurt,  not  that  she  knew  that 
it  did,  she  only  knew  something  made  her 
creep  closer  to  father. 

It  is  a  question  if  Abbie  even  rightly 
understood  that  she  and  her  father  in  their 
time  must  come  to  cross  the  valley  also 
to  where  that  shaft  stood;  it  was  not  that 
kind  of  fear,  for  only  vaguely  did  Abbie 
Ann  know  what  the  shaft  meant.  Yet  the 

63 


Abbie  Ann 

beauty  of  the  evening,  and  the  young  moon 
on  the  mists,  and  the  shaft  across  the  val 
ley,  stayed  on  the  little  heart.  It  is  good 
that  it  should  have;  The  Star  stayed  with 
Dickens'  child. 

Not  that  Abbie  thought  these  things, 
she  only  sat  close  within  the  circle  of  her 
father's  arm,  while  Fabe's  voice,  mellow 
and  low,  came  crooningly  out  from  the 
kitchen,  that  kitchen  which  had  so  shocked 
the  strange  lady,  to  the  rattle  of  his  pots 
and  pans. 


HEN  Mr.  Richardson  and 
Abbie  Ann  left  Coal  City  in 
September,  the  whole  commu 
nity  was  at  the  station  to  see 
them  off,  the  miners,  their  wives,  the  older 
children,  the  babies,  Mr.  McEwan  and 
Fabe. 

Abbie  felt  important.  She  even  had  a 
trunk  of  her  own  and  on  one  end  of  it,  it 
read: 

Abbie  Ann  Richardson. 

Down  at  the  junction  lived  a  lady  who 
sewed  and  who  had  made  Abbie's  new 
clothes  after  the  two  had  studied  the  fash 
ion  papers  together,  and  the  lady  had  sent 
down  to  Cincinnati  for  the  patterns  and 
the  materials.  Mr.  Richardson  seemed 
doubtful  at  the  results  but  said  if  Abbie 

6s 


Abbie  Ann 

and  the  lady  were  satisfied,  they  were  the 
ones  to  know.  Mr.  McEwan  said  all  was 
too  plain,  that  mere  gilt  braid  did  well 
enough  for  Coal  City,  but  for  metropolitan 
purposes,  it  ought  to  be  at  least  14  carat 
quality,  since  which  Abbie  had  been  a  little 
troubled  in  her  mind. 

Each  one  had  brought  her  something 
for  a  "good-by" ;  indeed  she  could  not  take 
them  all,  the  peach  pie  and  the  pet  squirrel, 
for  instance.  Mr.  McEwan  said  he  would 
take  care  of  the  pie. 

Everybody  waved  until  the  train,  east 
ward  bound,  was  rounding  the  curve  and 
Abbie  hanging-  out  the  window,  while  her 
father  clutched  her  skirts,  waved  too.  It 
made  her  new  ring  glisten.  Mr.  McEwan 
had  given  her  that.  The  green  diamond 
in  the  other  one  had  chipped  off  in  dis 
couraging  fashion,  and  finally  had  fallen 
out,  while  this  new  one  had  for  a  setting 
a  little,  clear,  dark-blue  stone  that  glis 
tened. 

66 


"  Each  one  had  brought  her  something  for  a  'good-by' 


Abbie  Ann 

"Not  so  rare  a  gem,  perhaps,"  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan  had  explained,  "but  with  better 
wearing  qualities.  And  blue,  you  know, 
is  true." 

Abbie  Ann,  gazing  at  her  ring,  resolved 
she  would  be  true.  A  verse  had  accom 
panied  the  ring.  It  read: 

"I  knew  by  her  hair  that  so  gracefully  curled 
Around  her  pink  ears,  that  she  ringlets 

held  dear, 

And  I  said/  Of  all  natural  things  intheworld, 
A  ring  let  me  give  her  before  she  leaves 
here.'  " 

Abbie  Ann  gave  Mr.  McEwan  a  pin, 
which  originally  had  a  black  bead  for  head 
until  she  dipped  it  in  sealing  wax.  He  had 
it  on  at  the  station  in  his  tie,  a  green  and 
blue  necktie,  where  it  showed  beautifully. 

That  night  Mr.  Richardson  and  Abbie 
Ann  reached  the  city,  going  to  a  hotel. 
The  next  day  they  went  to  the  school. 

It  was  a  large,  square  house  of  red 
brick,  with  white  shutters,  and  the  door 

69 


Abbie  Ann 

knob  and  the  door  bell  shone.  The  maid 
who  answered  the  ring  and  who  showed 
them  into  a  parlor,  was  square  herself,  and 
staid  and  neat  and  noiseless.  Everything 
in  the  room  seemed  to  shine  too,  the  furni 
ture,  the  fender,  the  mirror  between  the 
windows,  the  chandeliers.  Straight  back 
mahogany  chairs  sat  straight  back  against 
the  walls. 

Abbie  felt  her  heart  sinking.  The  truth 
was  though  she  did  not  know  it,  in  the 
midst  of  this  depressing  propriety  she  felt 
herself  a  very  small  somebody  indeed,  and 
she  resented  the  feeling. 

Then  a  lady  came  in  whom  Mr.  Rich 
ardson  rising  to  meet  addressed  as  Miss 
Owsley. 


VI 


ISS  OWSLEY,  whom  Abbie's 
father,  after  the  first  greeting 
called  Miss  Henrietta,  was  of 
medium  height  and  plump,  and 
shook  comfortably  when  she  laughed.  She 
had  white  hair  under  a  square  of  lace  and 
her  silk  dress  rustled  when  she  moved. 

Abbie  Ann  felt  smaller,  yet  nobody  had 
done  a  thing. 

"And  this  is  Abbie,"  said  the  lady, 
holding  out  a  plump,  well  kept  hand 
with  good,  old  fashioned  rings  on  it,  a 
capable,  resolute  old  hand,  with  a  move 
ment  of  decision  about  it  that  suggested 
sway  and  authority.  Not  that  the  small 
girl  read  this  in  it,  she  merely  stood  up  and 
came  and  took  it.  She  was  very  miserable. 
Then  they  all  sat  down. 


Abbie  Ann 

"Do  you  know,"  said  the  lady,  "she  is 
very  like  her  mother?  And  while  we  are 
on  the  subject, — Abbie,  child,  see  if  you 
can  find  a  book  on  the  table  there—" 

Abbie  Ann  got  down  and  went  to  the 
table  on  which  were  books  neatly  placed. 
She  took  one  because  she  was  told  to. 
Within  its  red  and  gold  cover,  which  was 
somewhat  faded,  were  colored  pictures  of 
little  boys  in  queer  short  jackets  and  long 
trousers.  The  name  on  the  book  was 
"Sanford  and  Merton."  It  had  been  on 
that  table  many  years,  for  things  did  not 
change  at  Miss  Owsley's  school  until  that 
lady  was  convinced  it  was  for  the  better. 

Although  Abbie  began  dutifully  to  read 
at  the  book,  she  never  after  asked  for  it 
that  she  might  finish  it;  also,  though  she 
did  not  mean  to  listen,  the  conversation 
now  and  then,  reached  her. 

"No  place  for  a  child,"  she  heard  her 
father  say.  What  was  no  place  for  a  child, 
Abbie  wondered. 

72 


Abbie's  last  days  with  her  father 


Abbie  Ann 

" — Could  not  leave  then,  nor  can  I 
now,"  father  was  saying;  "my  duty  to  the 
miners  who  have  stood  by  me  and  to  Ab 
bie  as  well,  is  to  stick  it  out  until  it  pays." 

She  also  heard  "Miss  Abbie,"  used  sev 
eral  times  on  Miss  Henrietta's  lips.  Did  it 
mean  herself?  It  was  very  awing  to  hear 
herself  called  "Miss." 

Then  her  father  spoke  again.  His  voice 
was  decided.  "Well,  Miss  Owsley,  it  is 
your  plan;  I  have  no  right,  I  suppose,  to 
object;  indeed,  I  suppose  I  ought  to  hope 
you  may  succeed,  though  I  may  as  well 
confess,  it  was  because  of  this  very  thing, 
and  the  thought  that  such  a  construction 
of  my  motive  might  be  put  upon  it,  that  I 
have  not  brought  her  to  you  sooner.  I  had 
no  right  to  oppose  Evelyn's  efforts,  but  I 
naturally  have  made  none  since  she, — " 
He  broke  off,  then  added  as  he  rose, — "it 
was  her  dearest  wish  it  might  be  so, 
though  myself,  I  see  no  especial  good  to 
come  from  it  now." 

75 


Abbie  Ann 

Evelyn  was  the  name  of  Abbie's  mother. 
She  wondered  what  it  all  meant. 

Then  her  father,  leaning  down,  kissed 
her  abruptly  and  went  away,  the  quicker 
that  he  felt  uncertain  what  she  was  going 
to  do.  He  was  to  remain  in  the  city  a 
week,  so  this  was  not  good-by,  but  still,  he 
went  in  a  hurry. 

She  stood  where  he  had  left  her,  pluck 
ing  at  the  fingers  of  the  little  cotton  gloves 
she  had  put  on  so  proudly.  Mr.  McEwan 
had  said  they  wore  gloves  in  cities.  Then 
she  began  to  swallow  hard. 

When  Miss  Owsley  returned  from  see 
ing  Mr.  Richardson  to  the  door,  she  bade 
Abbie  Ann  come  with  her.  She  was  very 
cheery  and  chatty  and  talked  briskly  of 
many  things  and  if  she  saw  the  tears  she 
gave  no  sign. 

They  went  out  into  the  hall  and  up  the 
stairs  which  were  painted  white  with  a 
dark  red  baluster  and  had  a  strip  of  red 
carpet  on  them  held  down  by  brass  rails 


Abbie  Ann 

that  shone.  So  did  the  room  up-stairs 
shine  into  which  Miss  Owsley  led  the  new 
pupil.  There  were  two  white  beds,  two 
chests  of  drawers,  one  bureau,  and  a  wash- 
stand  behind  a  blue  screen.  All  looked 
straight  and  precise  and  lonesome.  At 
home  Abbie  had  fashion-plate  ladies  and 
pictures  cut  from  the  papers  pasted  over 
her  walls,  and  the  drawers  of  her  bureau 
sat  in  a  corner  so  that  she  might  have  the 
bureau  for  a  three-storied  play-house.  It 
was  when  the  strange  lady  had  looked  in 
at  that  room,  that  she  said,  "poor  child!" 
in  accents  of  keenest  suffering. 

Miss  Owsley  was  speaking  with  busi 
ness-like  briskness.  "This  is  to  be  your 
room,  near  mine,  as  your  father  asked. 
You  will  share  it  with  one  other  girl. 
Neither  pupils  nor  teachers  have  returned 
yet.  School  opens  on  Wednesday  of  next 
week.  In  the  meantime  your  father  wishes 
me  to  look  over  your  clothes  to  see  if  any 
thing  is  wanting." 

77 


Abbie  Ann 

Abbie  Ann,  standing  forlornly  in  the 
center  of  the  lonesome  room,  began  to 
sob.  She  tried  to  stop  but  could  not. 

"Dear,  dear,  dearie  me,"  said  Miss 
Owsley,  for,  truth  to  tell,  she  was  non 
plussed.  This  was  not  generally  her  de 
partment  of  the  school,  it  was  in  executive 
ability  that  Miss  Owsley  was  strong.  She 
rubbed  her  handsome  nose  debatingly 
with  a  finger  tip  and  gazed  at  the  new 
pupil.  Abbie  Ann  was  plump  like  a  young 
robin,  and  her  red  curls  were  abundant. 
Her  little  zouave  jacket,  sporting  gilt 
braid  with  alarming  elaboration,  seemed 
rather  to  have  burst  to  allow  her  healthy 
little  waist  to  obtrude  between  it  and  the 
skirt,  than  to  have  been  curtailed  by  in 
tention,  and  little  Abbie's  brand-new  hat 
blossomed  like  a  flower  and  seed  catalogue: 

Planted  there  in  the  middle  of  the  floor, 
she  sobbed  on. 

"Dear,  dear  me,"  said  the  embarrassed 
Miss  Owsley.  The  new  pupil  was  younger 
by  a  year  than  any  boarder  ever  received 

78 


Abbie  Ann 

before  and  the  lady  was  quite  perplexed, 
but  she  led  her  by  the  hand  out  to  the  hall 
and  into  another  room.  Perhaps  she  felt 
the  bare  lonesomeness  of  the  first  one  too. 
A  canary  was  singing  here,  and  a  fire 
burned  in  the  grate. 

Miss  Owsley  was  reflecting.  What  had 
she  seen  the  primary  teacher  do  under 
such  circumstances  ?  Pupils  were  brought 
to  this  head  of  the  school,  as  a  rule,  when 
in  need  of  sterner  methods  than  comfort 
ing. 

Meanwhile  she  took  off  Abbie  Ann's 
hat  at  which  the  new  pupil,  as  if  interpret 
ing  the  attention  as  kindly,  groped  about 
for  some  part  of  this  comforter's  person  to 
hold  to  and  her  hand  closed  on  a  fold  of 
that  lady's  dress. 

Miss  Owsley,  forgetting  about  the  pos 
sible  method  of  the  primary  teacher,  sat 
down  and  took  her  in  her  lap  while  Abbie 
Ann  sobbed  against  her  shoulder. 

"Dear  me,  dear  me,"  said  Miss  Hen 
rietta,  and  patted  the  little  shoulder  and 
Si 


Abbie  Ann 

rocked.  Abbie  cried  on,  but  the  sobs  were 
not  so  wild.  Now  and  then  they  began  to 
check  themselves.  The  canary  sang.  She 
stopped  to  listen.  Then  she  sat  up  and  felt 
better. 

Miss  Owsley  laughed  as  if  to  find  her 
self  in  this  position  was  amusing.  Abbie, 
feeling  better,  laughed  too,  and  suddenly 
did  not  feel  strange  any  more,  and  sat  up 
and  began  to  talk.  She  showed  Miss  Hen 
rietta  her  ring,  and  after  that  told  her 
about  Mr.  McEwan,  and  about  Fabe,  and 
about  Coal  City. 

Miss  Owsley  asked  her  if  she  had  ever 
been  to  school  and  Abbie  told  her  about  the 
teachers.  It  is  doubtful  if  this  principal, 
for  all  her  years  at  schooling,  ever  got  so 
much  of  the  pupil's  point  of  view  before. 
Her  plump  shoulders  shook,  while,  one 
would  say,  she  somewhat  adroitly  led  the 
new  pupil  to  tell  about  the  teachers. 

One  who  had  come  to  Coal  City,  had 
been  named  Miss  Jane  Livermore.  There 
82 


Abbie  Ann 

had  been  an  advertisement  put  in  the 
Church  paper,  Abbie  related,  and  it  said, 
"Wanted,  an  elderly  teacher  to  take  en 
tire  charge  of  a  little  girl."  Father  and 
Mr.  McEwan  chose  Miss  Jane  Livermore 
from  among  the  answers,  on  account 
of  her  name  which  they  thought  sounded 
elderly  and  experienced,  but  when  she 
came  she  was  seventeen  and  she  cried  so 
they  had  to  let  her  go  right  back.  She 
said  she  had  thought  it  would  be  romantic, 
whereas  it  was  only  lonesome  and  her 
name  was  not  Jane  at  all— they  had  read 
her  writing  wrong— it  was  Jean. 

Miss  Henrietta  gathered  even  more 
about  the  last  teacher  of  all;  Miss  Sallie 
Briscom,  Abbie  said  was  her  name.  She 
kept  a  row  of  medicine  bottles  on  the  side 
board,  and  a  row  of  pill  boxes  on  the 
mantel.  She  said  she  could  n't  stand 
Fabe's  cooking,  that  there  was  no  sense  in 
roasting  a  whole  quarter  of  a  beast  at  once, 
and  then  eating  on  it  until  it  was  gone. 

83 


Abbie  Ann 

She  said  too,  so  Abbie  told  Miss  Henrietta, 
that  the  look  of  the  house  was  scandalous, 
that  Abbie  Ann  ought  to  be  made  to  pick 
her  things  up,  and  her  father  and  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan  to  wipe  their  feet  before  they  came 
in.  She  said  too,  that  Abbie  Ann's  posses 
sions,  overflowing  the  house,  were  trash. 

"  'Concentrate/  was  what  she  said,"  re 
lated  Abbie  Ann,  repeating  it  with  great 
care,  "  'concentrate  and  get  rid  of/  ' 

"And  Fabe  did,"  explained  Abbie;  "he 
poured  all  the  bottles  into  one,  when  he 
was  cleaning  the  dining-room,  and  he  put 
all  the  pills  into  one  box,  and  she  got  mad. 
She  said  he  might  have  killed  her.  So  she 
went." 

And  Miss  Henrietta  Owsley  laughed 
and  laughed.  She  had  had  Miss  Sallie 
Briscoms  for  teachers  in  her  day  too,  and 
even  Miss  Jean  Livermores.  And  the 
canary  sang,  and  the  fire  crackled,  and  Ab 
bie  Ann  laughed  too,  with  no  very  clear 
idea  why,  but  feeling  comfortable  within 
herself. 


VII 


ISS  OWSLEY  came  into  the 
new  pupil's  room  that  after 
noon  to  direct  the  maid  in  un 
packing,  and  to  show  Abbie 
Ann  how  to  put  her  clothes  away.  This 
relationship  with  a  pupil  was  a  new  one 
and  grew  out  of  the  unexpectedness  of  the 
situation.  For  small  Abbie  it  was  beauti 
fully  ordered,  else  how  would  she  have 
known  Miss  Henrietta?  Neither  teach 
ers  nor  other  pupils  had  arrived  yet,  and 
Miss  Owsley  and  the  little  girl  had  eaten 
dinner  in  the  big  dining-room  together, 
waited  on  by  the  square  and  silent  maid, 
whose  name  was  Martha  Lunn.  Later 
Abbie  found  the  girls  all  called  her  Sally. 
There  was  something  on  the  new  pupil's 

85 


Abbie  Ann 

mind  beside  the  unpacking  of  her  trunk 
when  Miss  Owsley  and  Martha  arrived. 

"Will  she  be  little  or  big,  Miss  Hen 
rietta?"  promptly  she  inquired. 

"Who?"  replied  Miss  Owsley,  contem 
plating  the  array  of  dresses  made  by  the 
Junction  lady,  and  now  laid  out  by  Martha 
on  the  bed.  There  was  a  plaid  silk  among 
them,  a  Scotch  costume;  a  "fancy  dress," 
the  fashion  paper  had  called  it,  Abbie  ex 
plained,  which,  indeed,  was  exactly  why 
she  had  chosen  it.  There  were  others 
equally  gay  if  less  elaborate,  but  this,  it 
could  be  seen,  was  her  favorite. 

Miss  Henrietta  was  smiling  to  herself 
over  something;  Abbie  Ann  wondered 
what,  but  repeated  her  question. 

"Will  who  be  little  or  big?"  returned 
Miss  Owsley,  rousing  from  her  own 
thoughts. 

"The  other  girl  in  this  room  ?" 

Martha  Lunn  was  lifting  a  hat  from  the 
tray.  It  was  the  new  pupil's  best,  that  was 
86 


Martha  Lunn  inspecting  Abbie  Ann's  new  hat 


Abbie  Ann 

plain  to  be  seen,  and  it  bore  a  wreath  of 
many-colored  flowers  made  of  feathers. 
Abbie  Ann  had  persuaded  her  father  to  let 
her  buy  it  of  a  man,  peddling  at  Coal  City, 
and  she  considered  it  very  beautiful.  So 
evidently  did  Martha  Lunn  who  lifted  it 
carefully  and  viewed  it  admiringly  from 
all  sides. 

"Queer  now,  how  they  come  to  make 
such  of  feathers,"  observed  Martha,  ex 
amining;  "my  cousin's  mother-in-law 
keeps  hers  like  it  under  glass." 

Miss  Henrietta  was  indulging  in  her 
silent  laugh  again,  and  it  was  such  a  com 
fortable  laugh  that  Abbie  Ann  laughed 
too,  wonderingly  but  sociably. 

Martha  Lunn  smiled  too,  in  her  way, 
which  was  grimly.  She  was  still  rubbing 
a  forefinger  investigatingly  along  a  fea 
thered  edge.  One  would  say  all  three 
were  enjoying  themselves,  each  in  her  own 
fashion. 

"The  room-mate?"  then  said  Miss  Ows- 

89 


Abbie  Ann 

ley,  "To  be  sure.  I  will  tell  you  the  names 
of  the  ones  I  had  thought  of,  and  suppose 
I  let  you  choose  for  yourself?" 

Miss  Henrietta  Owsley  grown  playful ! 
Martha  Lunn  again  chuckled  grimly  as 
she  bent  over  into  the  depths  of  the  trunk. 

"There  are  three  girls  to  come  back  who 
have  lost  their  room-mates,"  Miss  Owsley 
was  saying,  "any  one  of  whom  I  had 
thought  of  for  you." 

The  new  pupil  approached  close  and 
looked  at  her. 

"One  is  named  Mary  Dressel." 

Mary  Dressel,  pale,  neat,  eminently 
proper.  Abbie  Ann  had  an  instantaneous 
vision  of  her.  Her  mind  was  made  up. 
"No,"  she  said,  "she  's  good,  I  would  n't 
like  her." 

Miss  Owsley  smiled.  "Katherine  Van 
Antwerp." 

Abbie's  face  showed  equally  quick  pre 
judice.  "She  would  n't  like  me,  she  's 
fine,"  she  declared. 

90 


Abbie  Ann 

"Maria  Mason." 

"Oh,  Maria,"  decided  Abbie  Ann,  for 
Maria  did  not  sound  too  fine,  nor  yet  too 
good,  "I  want  it  to  be  Maria." 

Miss  Owsley,  seeming  well  satisfied, 
laughed  some  more,  then  turned  back  to 
the  now  emptied  trunk  and  then  to  the  bed. 
"Nothing  is  marked,  I  see.  Did  you  bring 
a  work  basket?  No?  Nor  thimble?  Nor 
darning  materials  ?" 

Abbie  Ann,  feeling  crestfallen,  said  no. 

The  questioner  seemed  to  make  a  mental 
note  of  it,  then  added,  "Have  you  rub 
bers?  Nor  raincoat?  Napkin  ring?  Nor 
warmer  flannels  than  these?  Nor  any 
school  dresses?" 

"Those,"  said  Abbie  Ann,  doubtfully, 
looking  to  the  bed,  "and  this,"  fingering 
the  dress  she  was  then  wearing.  She  had 
thought  Mr.  McEwan  was  joking  when 
he  said  her  clothes  lacked  trimming. 

Miss  Owsley  said  nothing  further,  but 
before  school  began,  a  week  later,  to  the 

91 


Abbie  Ann 

bewilderment  of  the  new  pupil,  the  Coal 
City  outfit  was  laid  away,  and  in  the  closet 
were  hung  two  new  dresses  fresh  from  the 
hands  of  Martha  Lunn's  seamstress  cou 
sin.  One  was  a  dark  blue  for  every  day, 
the  other  a  brown  for  Sunday,  and  with 
these  came  a  supply  of  white  aprons,  fine, 
long,  full,  with  ruffles  over  the  shoulders. 
There  was  a  blue  hat,  and  a  brown  one, 
with  ribbons,  but  not  a  feather.  Perhaps 
Miss  Henrietta  was  something  of  an  ex 
tremist  the  other  way. 

Abbie  Ann  cried,  and  in  her  room 
stamped  her  foot.  It  was  the  first  time  she 
had  done  so  since  leaving  home.  Martha, 
who  had  brought  the  new  clothes  home 
from  her  cousin's,  witnessed  it,  gazing  as 
if  a  little  fascinated.  "I  thought  you 
did  n't  have  that  red  hair  for  nothing," 
finally  she  said. 

Abbie  stopped  suddenly. 

But  she  told  her  father  about  it  that 
afternoon  in  the  park,  for  he  came  and 
92 


Abbie  Ann 

took  her  some  place  every  day.  They  were 
sitting  under  a  big  tree  supposedly  watch 
ing  the  ducks  and  swans  on  the  lake ;  but 
she,  concerned  with  her  own  troubles,  was 
telling  about  the  dresses. 

Her  father  laughed.  "What  's  bred  in 
the  bone,  Pollykins, — "  he  began.  Then 
he  laughed  again.  Abbie  Ann  had  no  idea 
what  about. 

Later  his  voice  changed.  "I  had  a  let 
ter  from  home  to-day,"  he  said,  "I  go  back 
to-night  instead  of  to-morrow." 

His  little  daughter  held  on  to  the  bench. 
It  was  as  if  something  had  stopped  inside 
her.  She  could  not  see  the  lake,  nor  the 
ducks,  nor  the  swans  for  a  moment,  only 
a  blur  of  them  all.  As  this  cleared  away, 
the  sun  was  slanting  long  in  under  the 
trees,  and  touching  the  grass.  Children's 
laughter,  from  afar,  reached  them  faintly. 

Why  should  it  hurt  ?  Why  should  there 
rush  on  little  Abbie,  because  the  sun 
slanted  long  and  golden,  the  picture  of  a 

93 


Abbie  Ann 

valley,  misty  like  a  silver  sea,  with  a  white 
shaft  beyond  and  a  young,  young  moon 
above?  Is  it  because  all  beautiful  things 
hurt? 

She  put  her  hand  in  her  father's,  and 
winked  the  rebellious  tears  back  some 
where.  It  was  an  uncertain  little  attempt, 
yet  still  it  was  an  attempt. 

But  we  like  to  have  our  efforts  appre 
ciated.  Abbie  was  afraid  he  had  n't  under 
stood.  "I  'm  being  good,  you  know,"  she 
explained,  looking  up  to  be  sure  he  com 
prehended  it.  "I  could  have, — "  with  a 
general  implication  he  understood  fully, 
"but  I  would  n't." 

Her  father  looked  a  little  queer,  perhaps 
a  little  sheepish  too.  Then  he  laughed. 
The  truth  was,  when  it  came  to  having  her 
cry  because  he  was  going  back,  that  was 
another  thing.  He  was  a  little  chagrined 
perhaps  that  she  did  not. 

But  they  held  each  other's  hand  on  the 
car  all  the  way  back  to  the  school. 

94 


VIII 


Y  Monday  the  teachers  had 
come,  and  on  Tuesday  the 
pupils  began  returning.  All 
day  there  were  arrivals,  and 
trunks  being  carried  in,  and  laughter  and 
greetings  in  the  halls. 

These  days  Miss  Henrietta  had  time  but 
for  passing  notice,  and  that  of  the  briefest, 
of  Abbie  Ann,  now  become  but  one  little 
girl  in  a  girls'  school  of  many,  and  Abbie, 
so  quick  to  note,  and  so  quick  also  to  re 
sent,  hung  around  gloomily  and  watched 
the  arrivals.  She  regarded  these  new 
comers  furtively.  Their  laughter  made 
her  feel  left  out,  and  the  old  intimacies  and 
companionships  everywhere  in  evidence, 
made  her  jealous.  For  comfort,  she  began 

95 


Abbie  Ann 

to  coax  up  embers  of  self-pity.  Miss  Hen 
rietta  liked  the  others  better,  Miss  Hen 
rietta  greeted  them  pleasantly  and  never 
noticed  her  standing  there!  She  would 
go  up  to  her  room,  she  would  write  to  her 
father  and  tell  him  to  come  and  take  her 
home,  she  would,  she  would  so,  yet, — 

Abbie  Ann  lingered  on  in  the  hall. 

She  told  herself  it  was  because  another 
girl  was  just  then  arriving  but  she  lin 
gered  on  even  after  the  several  girls  stand 
ing  around  rushed  to  greet  the  new-comer. 
She  was  a  dark-haired  girl,  and  her  cheeks 
were  rich  with  crimson ;  she  kissed  every 
body  rapturously,  then  seeing  Miss  Ows- 
ley  coming  through  the  hall,  she  dropped 
satchel  and  umbrella  and  flew  to  greet  her. 
The  new-comer  made  one  think  of  breezi- 
ness  and  laughter  and  excitement,  and 
Miss  Owsley,  shaking  hands  with  her, 
called  her  Mary, — Mary  Dressel.  Abbie 
Ann  felt  as  if  Mary  Dressel  had  purposely 
deceived  her. 

96 


Abbie  Ann 

At  the  one  o'clock  dinner  hour  she  heard 
another  girl  called  Katherine  Van  Ant 
werp,  a  tall,  thin  girl  who  wore  eye 
glasses,  and  whose  aunt,  it  seemed,  was  a 
teacher  in  the  school. 

Abbie  Ann  felt  queerer;  what  would 
Maria  be? 

She  was  still  hanging  around  in  the  hall, 
full  of  interest  and  not  honest  enough  to 
admit  it,  when  Maria  Mason  came.  Miss 
Owsley  called  to  Abbie  at  once,  who  went 
self-consciously  to  greet  her.  Maria  was 
small,  almost  as  small  as  Abbie  herself, 
and  her  hair  was  smooth  and  tied  in 
looped-up  plaits  behind  her  ears.  Her 
cheeks  were  pink  and  grew  pinker  when 
she  was  spoken  to.  When  she  took  off  her 
jacket,  she  was  as  neat  and  straight  as 
though  she  had  not  just  come  that  after 
noon  from  Washington.  It  turned  out 
that  Maria's  father  was  an  army  officer, 
and  he  and  her  mother  had  been  ordered 
too  far  away  for  her  to  be  taken.  She 

97 


Abbie  Ann 

spent  her  vacations,  so  Abbie  learned  in 
time,  with  her  aunt  and  her  grandmother 
in  Washington,  and  this  was  her  second 
year  at  the  school.  She  was  eleven,  where 
as  Mary  Dressel  and  Katherine  were 
older.  Abbie  Ann  was  glad. 

That  afternoon  she  helped  Maria  un 
pack,  taking  the  things  from  her  as  she 
lifted  them  out  of  her  trunk,  and  carrying 
them  to  the  bed.  Maria's  petticoats  and 
little  undergarments  were  fine  as  fine  and 
the  scallops  on  them  were  done  by  hand. 
Abbie  had  never  thought  about  undergar 
ments  needing  to  be  fine  before.  And 
Maria's  aprons  seemed  as  if  they  were  for 
parties.  She  said  her  grandma  and  her 
auntie  made  them,  and  her  mama  made 
and  sent  the  scalloped  runnings  in  her  let 
ters  by  mail.  Maria  had  a  work-box,  and 
a  bag  for  her  laundry,  and  bags  to  hang 
for  her  shoes.  When  she  had  unpacked 
her  pin-cushion  and  sofa  pillow  and  her 
photographs,  and  she  and  Abbie  Ann  had 


"  That  afternoon  she  helped  Maria  unpack  " 


Abbie  Ann 

put  them  around,  the  room  looked  dressed 
up. 

Then  Abbie  said,  "Let 's  rest." 

But  Maria  could  n't.  "I  Ve  got  to 
finish.  Auntie  told  me  to." 

She  laughed  and  her  cheeks  grew  pink, 
but  she  did  it;  that  was  Maria's  way,  she 
always  did  it ;  perhaps  being  an  army  offi 
cer's  daughter  had  something  to  do  with  it. 

Soon  Abbie  Ann  wondered  what  she 
would  have  done  without  Maria,  who  told 
her  what  was  expected  of  her,  and  the 
names  of  the  teachers,  and  of  the  girls, 
and  what  she  must  do  and  must  not  do. 
The  bedrooms  were  all  in  the  big  house, 
together  with  the  reception  rooms  and 
parlor  and  dining-room,  but  the  school 
rooms  were  in  a  frame  building  in  the  yard 
behind. 

In  a  week  it  was  as  if  she  might  always 
have  known  Maria,  who  even  showed  Ab 
bie  her  letters  from  her  mother  and  her 
father.  The  latter  sent  her  a  beautiful  silk 

101 


Abbie  Ann 

American  flag  on  his  birthday,  and  they 
put  it  above  his  picture  over  the  table. 

Abbie  showed  Maria  the  letters  which 
came  from  her  father  and  Mr.  McEwan. 
One  from  the  latter  had  a  verse  in  it 
which  Maria  memorized  and  when  she 
said  it  she  would  get  to  laughing.  Abbie 
Ann  would  giggle  too,  for  when  Maria 
laughed  she  could  not  stop,  and  Miss  In 
gram,  the  primary  teacher  whose  room 
was  next,  would  rap  on  the  wall  and  they 
would  have  to  put  their  faces  in  the  pillows 
to  hush.  Abbie,  in  her  letter  to  Mr.  Mc 
Ewan,  had  written  about  the  school  and 
Miss  Henrietta  and  Martha  Lunn. 

"The  girls  call  her  Sally,"  she  had  writ 
ten  about  Martha,  "she  fell  down  the  other 
day,  she  was  Heavy,  the  Ladder  broak,  she 
could  not  get  up." . 

It  was  to  this  letter  that  Mr.  McEwan 
was  replying.    In  his  answer  were,  "Lines 
to  Miss  Sally  Lunn  Upon  Her  Fall  From 
a  Ladder."    The  verses  read: 
1 02 


Abbie  Ann 

"O  Sally  Lunn,  how  sad  to  tell 

That  you,  who  should  be  light, 
Did  prove  so  heavy  that  you  fell 
From  such  a  risen  height! 

"They  tell  me  that  you  could  not  rise 

After  you  fell,  and  yet 
Should  you  not  rise  in  lighter  guise 
For  having  thus  been  set? 

"O  Sally  Lunn,  O  Sally  Lunn, 

That  you  should  fall  was  bad; 
But  lest  you  should  be  worse  undone 
Don't  let  it  make  you  sad !" 


103 


IX 


|HE  youngest  pupil  began  to 
like  school  well  enough — that 
is,  all  but  the  weekly  attend 
ance  at  church.  Ministers 
came  seldom  indeed  to  Coal  City  and  even 
on  these  occasions  Abbie's  father  let  her 
go  home  before  sermon  time,  and  carried 
peppermint  drops  in  his  vest  pocket  for  her 
during  the  time  she  was  there,  but  there  is 
no  one  at  boarding-school  to  remember 
she  was  such  a  very,  very  little  girl — how 
would  there  be  ? 

Every  Sunday  the  girls  were  taken  in 
procession,  two  by  two,  to  Miss  Owsley's 
own  church  where  they  occupied  a  num 
ber  of  pews  reserved  for  them. 

One  very  warm  Sunday  morning  in  late 
October,  Abbie  Ann  took  her  place  in  the 
104 


Abbie  Ann 

rear  of  the  procession  unwillingly  enough, 
walking  with  Maria,  they  being  the  small 
est. 

The  sun  was  hot  and  Abbie  followed 
the  line  in  with  a  sigh  of  relief.  Being  the 
last,  she  and  Maria  sat  in  the  last  row  of 
the  school  pews. 

It  all  seemed  long  to  the  youngest  pupil. 
She  yawned,  she  stretched  her  small  legs 
which  dangled  wearily  between  seat  and 
floor,  she  thought  of  the  mountains,  and 
of  father  and  Mr.  McEwan,  and  of  the 
merry  day  they  might  be  having  together. 

Wriggling,  she  twisted  her  handker 
chief  in  her  hands,  which  brought  to  mind 
a  game  she  and  Mr.  McEwan  sometimes 
played.  With  some  labor,  for  Abbie  Ann 
was  not  dexterous  with  her  fingers,  she 
knotted  one  of  the  corners  of  the  handker 
chief,  then  thrusting  her  small  finger  into 
the  knot  and  adjusting  the  skirts  around 
about  her  little  fist,  forthwith  the  minia 
ture  puppet  began  to  nod  and  dance. 

105 


Abbie  Ann 

Abbie  Ann  looked  at  Maria,  who,  fol 
lowing  the  glance  down  to  her  hand,  shook 
her  head  and  looked  shocked.  The  solemn 
puppet  nodded  wickedly,  and  Maria  gave 
a  giggle. 

Suddenly  the  puppet  became  a  ghost  and 
came  stalking  stiffly  toward  Maria  who 
gave  a  little  shriek,  hastily  muffled,  it  is 
true,  but  not  before  whack!  came  some 
thing  on  Abbie  Ann's  head,  and  both 
looked  hastily  round  into  the  faces  of 
two  old  ladies,  two  pompous  and  fine  old 
ladies,  two  very  well-dressed  old  ladies 
who  were  eyeing  Abbie  Ann  severely, 
while  the  one  who  had  tapped  her  on  the 
head  with  a  fan,  shook  that  article  in  a 
threatening  manner. 

Abbie,  startled,  met  this  person's  gaze. 
With  her  glowing  cheeks,  her  wealth  of 
hair,  her  flashes  of  smile  and  storm,  her 
brown  eyes,  roving,  speculating,  wonder 
ing,  Abbie  was  more  than  pretty,  though 
she  did  not  know  this.  Had  any  one  ever 
1 06 


Suddenly  the  puppet  became  a  ghost 


Abbie  Ann 

seen  a  little  girl  anything  in  appearance 
like  her  before,  that  person  would  have 
been  apt  to  remember  it. 

As  Abbie  turned,  the  old  lady  with  the 
fan  straightened  herself  suddenly,  and 
looked  at  this  youngest  of  Miss  Owsley's 
pupils  strangely.  Indeed,  the  pupil  could 
feel  the  look  going  through  her,  as  it  were, 
and  also  she  knew  she  had  been  naughty, 
and  was  being  reprimanded,  in  church, 
and  by  strangers.  Maria's  face,  too,  was 
crimson  and  she  looked  as  though  she 
might  be  going  to  cry. 

Abbie  feeling  a  sudden  hatred  of  every 
one  around  her,  of  school  and  of  every 
thing  connected  with  it,  for  she  could  not 
stand  it  to  be  in  the  wrong,  buried  her  face 
in  the  cushioned  pew  back  and  began  to 
sob. 

Maria  pulled  her.  "Miss  Walsh  is  look 
ing,"  she  whispered.  Now  Miss  Walsh, 
the  head  teacher,  was  tall  and  sparing  of 
her  words,  so  that  a  mere  look  on  her  part 
109 


Abbie  Ann 

was  generally  effective.  Indeed  that  part 
of  boarding-school  consisting  of  Miss 
Walsh  was  all  tradition  had  made  it  out  to 
be.  Abbie  turned  about  hastily,  to  find 
that  everybody  seemed  to  be  looking  at 
her,  that  even  the  girls  in  front  had  turned 
around  solicitously. 

She  hated  to  be  looked  at,  she  hated  to 
be  pitied,  and  she  gave  a  sudden  sob  of 
rage. 

Miss  Walsh,  turning  again,  looked  at 
little  Miss  Ingram,  and  little  Miss  Ingram, 
on  whom  all  unpleasant  tasks  seemed  to 
fall,  perhaps  because  she  let  them,  rose  and 
beckoned  to  the  youngest  pupil. 

Eyed  by  her  neighbors,  that  small  per 
son  stood  up,  and  Maria,  tearful  herself, 
handed  her  her  prayer-book,  and,  dis 
graced  and  overwhelmed,  small  Abbie 
Ann  crept  out  of  the  pew,  and  was  led 
down  the  long  aisle  and  out  of  the  church. 

It  is  something  of  an  ordeal  to  walk 
down  an  aisle  like  that.  When  they  got 
no 


Abbie  Ann 

out,  little  Miss  Ingram's  face  was  scarlet, 
and  her  lips  were  pressed  tightly,  and  she 
turned  the  youngest  pupil  in  the  right  di 
rection  by  rather  a  sharp  grasp  on  her 
shoulder.  The  small  person  looked  up, 
startled,  but  Miss  Ingram  made  no  re 
marks  and  the  walk  was  in  silence. 

Miss  Henrietta,  who  had  remained  at 
home  because  of  a  cold,  looked  grave  when 
Abbie  Ann  was  led  in.  It  was  at  times 
such  as  this  that  she  generally  came  in 
touch  with  her  pupils. 

Miss  Ingram  tried  to  explain,  having 
guessed  at  what  had  happened  from  the 
little  she  had  seen. 

"Abbie,"  she  reported,  "mistreated 
Maria  Mason  in  church." 

Abbie  Ann  could  n't  believe  her  ears; 
she  turned  on  little  Miss  Ingram  like  a 
fury.  She  stamped  her  foot,  she  tore  her 
hat  off  and  flung  it  across  the  room  and 
that  the  elastic  snapped  and  stung  her  chin 
did  not  help  things  either.  "I  did  n't!" 
in 


Abbie  Ann 

she  raved,  "I  did  n't !  I  hate  school !  I  'm 
going  home  to  my  father — "  And  brought 
to  a  finish  only  because  she  choked,  she 
flung  herself  on  the  floor  and  burst  into 
tears. 

Miss  Henrietta  motioning  the  horrified 
Miss  Ingram  out,  waited  until  she  was 
gone.  Then  she  spoke,  and  her  voice  was 
changed  so  that  it  made  Abbie,  even  in 
her  rage,  look  up.  Miss  Henrietta's  face, 
too,  was  as  changed  as  her  voice. 

"I  shall  not  try  to  talk  to  you  until  you 
can  act  like  a  human  being.  Does  rage 
convert  you  into  something  lower  than 
human  that  you  should  grovel?  Get  up 
and  go  to  your  room."  And  she  turned 
about  to  the  window  while  Abbie  Ann 
crept  out. 

Only  that  little  soul  knew  what  the  next 
hours  in  her  room  meant.  Miss  Henrietta 
had  shown  Abbie  Ann  to  herself.  All  the 
rest  was  forgotten  in  the  memory  of  that 
question:  "Does  rage  convert  you  into 

112 


Abbie  Ann 

something  lower  than  a  human,  that  you 
should  grovel  ?" 

Small  Abbie  had  never  heard  the  word 
grovel  before,  but  somehow  she  knew 
what  it  meant.  Nor  do  the  Abbie  Anns 
have  to  be  older  than  nine  to  know  when  a 
thing  is  true.  She  had  been  blessed  with 
a  large  and  comfortable  opinion  of  her 
self,  and  this  view  was  upsetting.  Per 
haps  the  statements  made  by  the  lady  visi 
tor  to  Coal  City  were  true  too,  which  was 
what  made  them  also  unpleasant. 

The  day  passed;  no  one  came  near  her 
except  Martha,  who  at  dinner  time  en 
tered,  put  a  tray  on  the  table  silently,  took 
a  look  around,  and  went  out. 

What  of  Maria?  Abbie  Ann's  heart 
yearned  for  Maria,  her  comforter  and 
counselor,  the  steady-going  Maria.  The 
last  she  had  seen  of  Maria,  her  pink  little 
cheeks  were  wet  with  tears  for  Abbie, 
who,  remembering,  wept  less  violently, 
and  even  got  up  and  investigated  the  tray. 

"3 


Abbie  Ann 

There  was  turkey  and  cranberries,  and— 
yes,  chocolate  pudding.  Abbie  Ann's 
heart  softened  to  the  bigness  of  Miss  Hen 
rietta  in  the  matter  and  she  wept  some 
more.  Not  that  she  meant  to  touch  it! 
The  fitness  of  things  showed  even  Abbie 
Ann  the  incongruity  of  turkey  to  tragedy. 
She  was  resolved  that  Martha  Lunn 
should  carry  that  tray  out  untouched,  ex 
actly  as  it  came  in. 

She  looked  a  little  shamefaced  when 
later  Martha  Lunn  came  for  the  tray, 
and  it  was  empty.  We  hate  to  acknow 
ledge  to  ourselves  that  we  are  not  built  for 
the  bigger  roles  in  life. 

Martha,  having  met  some  Abbie  Anns 
in  her  time  before,  smiled  grimly,  which 
hardened  that  little  person's  heart  again, 
so  that  she  felt  she  hated  them  all,  even — 
yes,  even  Maria. 

But  late  in  the  afternoon  the  sun 
streamed  in,  low  and  level,  a  moment  be 
fore  setting,  and  oddly  enough  it  made  the 
114 


Abbie  Ann 

youngest  pupil  cry  some  more,  but  with  no 
rage  in  the  tears  now. 

A  moment  later  there  came  a  tap,  and 
then  the  door  opened  to  Maria's  touch. 
Now  she  might  have  had  her  own  cause 
for  grievance,  having  been  shut  out  of  her 
room  for  no  shortcomings  of  her  own, 
but  she  only  looked  concerned. 

"Abbie,"  she  said,  and  the  very  tones 
of  her  anxious  little  voice  brought  com 
fort,  "Miss  Owsley  says  you  are  to  come 
out, —  it 's  supper." 

A  disheveled  little  figure  arose  from  the 
bed  and  flung  itself  upon  Maria.  "Oh," 
said  Abbie  Ann,  steeped  in  repentance,  as 
it  were,  "I  '11  never  take  more  than  my 
share  of  the  pegs,  Maria,  never  any 
more." 

Then,  before  Maria  could  reply,  she  was 
gone. 

Miss  Henrietta  was  reading.  Now  it  is 
to  be  noted  that  the  stout,  portly  lady 
capped  with  the  lace  square  upon  her  white 

"5 


Abbie  Ann 

hair  was  "Miss  Henrietta"  to  but  one  per 
son  in  her  school,  and  to  the  rest  she  re 
presented  Miss  Owsley. 

There  came  a  tap  at  her  door,  and  a 
panting  Abbie  Ann  burst  in  and  flung  her 
self  upon  the  portly  bosom  of  Miss  Hen 
rietta.  "I  'm  sorry,  I  'm  sorry,"  she 
sobbed. 

Doubtless  Miss  Owsley  should  have 
reprimanded  such  impulsiveness,  but  in 
stead,  she  lifted  the  plump  little  person 
up  to  her  lap  and  let  her  cry  there.  Who 
knows  but  secretly  it  was  dear  to  her  to 
comfort  the  repentant  youngest  pupil? 

When  Martha  Lunn  came  in  a  moment 
later,  Miss  Owsley  put  the  youngest  pupil 
down  a  little  hastily,  with  something  of 
the  same  shamefaced  look  on  her  face, 
that  had  been  known  to  be  on  Abbie's 
parent's,  when,  for  instance,  he  tip-toed  up 
to  his  little  daughter's  room  to  see  what 
she  was  doing,  after  he  had  punished  her. 
Also  Miss  Owsley  hastily  suggested  that 
116 


Abbie  Ann 

the  youngest  pupil  owed  something  to 
Miss  Ingram.  Abbie  went  slowly  out ;  she 
would  go  to  Miss  Ingram  because  Miss 
Henrietta  said  so,  but  she  did  n't  love  Miss 
Ingram. 

Martha  Lunn  made  pretense  of  brush 
ing  up  the  already  immaculate  hearth. 

"They  've  got  a  tempestuous,  stormy 
road  to  travel,  I  Ve  al'ays  noticed — red 
heads  have,"  remarked  Martha,  incident 
ally. 


'117 


X 


N  the  following  Friday,  Miss 
Owsley  sent  for  Abbie  Ann. 

"Instead  of  walking  with 
the  school  this  afternoon,"  she 
said  to  the  inquiring  little  girl  who  ap 
peared,  "I  wish  you  to  go  with  me  to  call 
upon  some  ladies  who  knew  your  mother." 
"Yes  'm,"  said  Abbie,  virtuously,  for  the 
repentant  uplift  was  still  upon  her.  She 
wondered  who  the  ladies  might  be,  but  it 
was  not  hers,  this  proper  little  girl's  part, 
to  ask.  One  almost  might  have  looked  to 
see  her  little  hands  folded,  so  chastened 
was  the  deportment  of  the  youngest  pupil. 
Miss  Henrietta,  noticing  the  air  of  vir 
tuous  attention,  turned  away;  was  it  be 
cause  of  sudden  laughter  that  shook  her 
shoulders  ? 

118 


Abbie  Ann 

Abbie  Ann,  departing,  put  on  her  best 
cashmere  with  the  aid  of  Martha  Lunn, 
but  not  without  a  sigh,  chastened  though 
she  was,  for  the  glories  of  a  banished 
wardrobe  that  she  knew  of.  This  done, 
and  hat  and  cloak  on,  she  went  and 
knocked  at  Miss  Henrietta's  door. 

That  lady  viewed  her  critically.  "Tell 
Martha  to  bring  your  brush,"  she  said. 
And  when  that  soul  came,  she  had  her 
brush  Abbie's  hair  all  over  again.  Now 
Martha  had  an  artist's  pride  in  her  handi 
work;  she  did  n't  see  anything  wanting 
as  it  was,  but  good-naturedly  plied  the 
brush  with  vigorous  hand  again,  then 
slipped  a  forefinger  in  a  curl  and  displayed 
it.  "Ekal  to  a  good  brass  polish,  that 
shine  is,"  she  commented. 

At  last  Miss  Henrietta  seemed  satisfied 
and  they  went  down  the  steps  together, 
but  she  seemed  quite  nervous  and  unlike 
herself  all  the  way.  It  was  not  far,  half 
a  dozen  squares  perhaps,  into  the  older 
7  119 


Abbie  Ann 

part  of  the  city,  but  Miss  Owsley  had  set 
tled  Abbie's  hat,  and  retouched  her  curls 
several  times,  perhaps  because  of  the 
freakish  wind  of  the  bleak  November  day, 
before  they  stopped  at  a  red  brick  house 
with  white  trimmings  and  heavy  white 
shutters. 

"Now,  Abbie,"  she  said,  "try  to  be  a 
little  lady." 

This  remark  was  disconcerting,  it  put 
Abbie  Ann  out  of  conceit  with  her  recent 
efforts  and  made  her  a  little  sulky.  They 
went  up  the  steps  together,  the  stout  old 
lady  and  the  plump  little  girl. 

An  elderly  woman  in  cap  and  apron 
opened  the  door. 

"Well,  Eliza,"  said  Miss  Owsley. 

"How  do  you  do,  ma'am,"  said  Eliza, 
but  it  was  at  the  little  girl  with  the  bur 
nished  curls  she  was  looking.  Eliza 
seemed  nervous  too.  "In  the  library, 
please,"  she  said. 

"Very  well,  Eliza.  Now,  my  dear,"  this 
1 20 


Abbie  Ann  knocking  at  Miss 
Henrietta's  door 


Abbie  Ann 

to  Abbie  Ann,  "try  to  behave  prettily," 
which  again  was  an  unfortunate  way  of 
putting  it. 

Miss  Henrietta  led  the  way  and  vaguely 
wondering  what  was  expected  of  her, 
Abbie  Ann  followed  down  the  hall  and 
through  a  curtained  doorway. 

Two  tall  figures  arose  in  the  half  gloom 
and,  the  first  greetings  over,  Miss  Hen 
rietta  Owsley  drew  a  little  girl  with  bur 
nished  curls  from  behind  her  with  the  re 
mark,  "I  have  brought  her,  you  see." 

Tall,  imposing,  bewilderingly  bedecked, 
there  stood  the  two  old  ladies  who  had 
frowned  on  Abbie  Ann  and  had  witnessed 
her  disgrace  in  church. 

If  there  was  room  for  any  thought  in 
that  overwhelmed  little  sinner's  heart,  it 
was  that  she  might  not  be  remembered. 

The  tallest  and  straightest  of  the  old 
ladies  spoke.  "So  it  is  the  child  I  was 
obliged  to  correct  in  church  last  Sun 
day." 

123 


Abbie  Ann 

The  three  elderly  dames  gazed  down  on 
the  one  little  girl. 

"Of  all  disappointing  things—"  the  lit 
tle  girl  heard  Miss  Owsley  say,  then  saw 
her  turn  to  the  other,  the  more  kindly- 
looking  lady.  "Well,  Ann,  and  have  you 
no  word  of  welcome  for  Evelyn's  child, 
either?" 

That  lady  had  been  standing  in  the 
shadow  of  the  other.  She  came  forward, 
her  fineries  rustling  like  the  wind  through 
the  dry-leafed  boughs  at  end  of  autumn 
and  took  the  little  girl's  hand.  "What 
is  your  name,  my  dear  ?"  she  asked,  some 
what  timidly. 

"Abbie  Ann  Richardson,"  said  the 
owner  of  the  name,  faintly,  and  in  a  voice 
she  certainly  never  had  heard  before. 

At  that  the  lady  dropped  her  hand  sud 
denly,  and  the  other  old  lady  said,  quite 
fiercely,  "Where  did  you  get  your  name?" 

"My  sponsors,"  actually  trembled  on  the 
dazed  youngest  pupil's  lips,  she  having 
124 


"  •  I  have  brought  her,  you  see 


Abbie  Ann 

newly  reached  that  point  in  a  recently  in 
troduced  thing  called  catechism,  but  Miss 
Owsley's  hand  upon  her  shoulder  recalled 
her  in  time  and  she  said  she  did  not  know. 

"Do  you  not  know  for  whom  you  are 
named  ?"  persisted  the  old  lady,  eyeing  the 
plump  little  girl  keenly. 

"No,  ma'am,"  said  Abbie  Ann,  swal 
lowing  hard. 

"I  told  you  that  the  child  knows  noth 
ing,"  said  Miss  Owsley,  tartly. 

The  lady  frowned.  "You  are  named  for 
me,"  she  announced  abruptly,  "for  me  and 
for  this  lady,"  and  she  brought  the  other 
old  lady,  who  had  melted  away  behind  her 
again,  forward  by  a  tap  with  her  fan.  "We 
are  your  great-aunts.  I  am  your  great- 
aunt,  Abbie  Norris,  and  this  is  your  great- 
aunt,  Ann  Norris." 

She  paused  and  seemed  to  wait  for  the 

effect  of  her  words.     She  could  not  have 

been  disappointed.    The  little  girl  gasped 

and  turned  toward   Miss  Owsley  help- 

127 


Abbie  Ann 

lessly.  She  remembered  afterward  won 
dering  if  they  were  great  aunts  because 
they  were  so  tall  and  so  terrifying. 

Miss  Owsley  looked  flushed  and  an 
noyed.  "What  is  the  use — "  she  began. 

"Exactly,"  interrupted  Aunt  Abbie 
Norris.  "What  is  the  use  of  all  this  mys 
tery?" 

"Oh,  sister!"  said  Aunt  Ann  Norris. 
Then  she  turned  to  Miss  Owsley.  She 
looked  frightened  and  fluttered.  "Sit 
down,  dear  Henrietta,"  she  begged,  for 
everybody  had  been  standing. 

"I  knew  who  she  was  when  she  looked 
up  in  church,"  announced  Aunt  Abbie 
Norris.  "She  has  every  Norris  feature. 
It  is  of  no  use  to  lay  plots  for  me,  Hen 
rietta,  I  did  not  know  she  was  in  the  city, 
but  the  moment  she  looked  up,  I  knew 
her." 

"Sister!"  cried  Aunt  Ann.     "And  you 
did  not  say  a  word  wrhen  Henrietta  came 
to  ask  if  she  might  bring  her !" 
128 


Abbie  Ann 

Aunt  Abbie  looked  a  trifle  disconcerted, 
if  her  severe  countenance  could  look  such 
a  thing.  "I  did  not  want  to  spoil  Hen 
rietta's  plans,"  she  said,  and  turned  on  her 
little  niece  suddenly. 

That  small  person  was  sitting  uneasily 
on  the  edge  of  her  chair  and  at  Aunt  Ab- 
bie's  sudden  movement  she  almost  fell  off. 

"How  did  you  happen  to  come  here  to 
school?"  Aunt  Abbie  demanded,  and  she 
said  it  with  the  air  of  one  who  announces, 
"I  have  you  now." 

Abbie  Ann  caught  her  breath.  Miss 
Henrietta  gave  her  a  little  touch.  "It  was 
on  account  of  the  flat-car,"  said  Abbie 
Ann  in  a  high  voice,  desperately. 

"What  ?"  demanded  Aunt  Abbie. 

"The  flat-car,"  said  Abbie  Ann,  trying 
not  to  cry. 

The  door  opened  and  Eliza  came  in  with 
a  tray  on  which  were  glasses  and  a  plate 
of  cakes. 

"You  may  take  a  cake,  Abbie  Ann," 
129 


Abbie  Ann 

said  Miss  Henrietta,  when  the  tray  was 
passed.  The  small  person  took  one  and 
held  to  it  miserably. 

"Now  what  was  that  about  a  flat-car  ?" 
demanded  Aunt  Abbie. 

But  Aunt  Ann,  interposing  in  a  flut 
tered  way,  timidly  called  the  little  niece  to 
her.  One  almost  would  have  said  she,  too, 
was  afraid  of  Aunt  Abbie. 

Little  Abbie  went  to  Aunt  Ann's  side. 
She  even  looked  up  timidly  after  Aunt 
Abbie  turned  and  went  on  talking  to  Miss 
Henrietta.  This  great-aunt's  hair  was 
soft  gray,  where  Aunt  Abbie's  was  hard 
gray,  though  both  wore  it  alike,  much 
waved  and  crimped. 

Aunt  Ann  bent  and  took  off  the  niece's 
hat,  and  drew  her  against  her  knee. 
"Now,  my  dear,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden 
little  authority,  "tell  me  what  it  was  about 
a  flat-car." 

Thus  encouraged,  Abbie  Ann  told  of 
her  adventures  on  that  object,  and  of  Jim 
130 


Abbie  Ann 

and  the  girl  at  the  hotel,  and  of  the  ring, 
and  of  how  she  and  father  had  agreed  to 
do  their  duty,  and  so  she  had  come  to  Miss 
Henrietta  to  school,  and  forgetting  the 
terrifying  Aunt  Abbie,  who  fortunately 
was  behind  her,  Abbie  Ann  told  it  to  Aunt 
Ann  quite  naturally  and  at  the  end  began 
to  eat  her  cake. 

But  here  Miss  Henrietta,  who  had  been 
talking  with  Miss  Abbie,  arose.  "Tell 
your  aunts  good-by,"  she  said. 

Abbie  Ann  knowing  but  one  meaning  of 
the  command,  put  her  plump  little  face  up 
to  Aunt  Ann  willingly  enough,  but  went 
over  to  Aunt  Abbie  with  visible  reluctance, 
while  that  person  stooped  and  touched  the 
little  forehead  with  a  hasty,  "There, 
there." 

Eliza  saw  them  to  the  door,  but  as  they 
stepped  out  into  the  vestibule  there  came  a 
rustle  behind  them,  and  there  was  Aunt 
Ann  looking  flurried  and  unhappy.  One 
would  not  have  thought  one  old  lady  could 


Abbie  Ann 

have  had  on  so  many  chains  and  chate 
laines  and  pins  and  rings  and  trinkets. 
Abbie  Ann  loved  chains  and  rings  and 
trinkets  herself,  and  gazed  upward  at 
Aunt  Ann's. 

"You  must  not  mind,  dear  Henrietta," 
Aunt  Ann  was  saying  in  a  hurried  way; 
"you  know  how  much  she  thinks  of  you 
behind  it  all." 

"H'm,"  said  Miss  Henrietta.  Perhaps 
she  was  wondering  now  why  she  had  done 
it. 

"H'm,"  said  Miss  Henrietta.    Perhaps 

"Humph,"  said  a  voice  grimly,  from 
within  the  hall,  and  as  Miss  Ann  went  in 
hastily,  Miss  Henrietta  and  the  little  girl 
with  the  burnished  curls  went  down  the 
steps.  It  would  seem  as  if  all  that  burnish 
ing  had  been  for  naught. 

Miss  Henrietta  seemed  most  decidedly 

put  out  over  something.     Abbie  Ann  had 

too  guilty  a  fear  it  was  connected  with  her 

behavior  at  church  to  gather  courage  to 

132 


Abbie  Ann 

open  her  mouth.    They  trudged  along  in 
silence. 

After  a  long  time  Abbie  Ann  spoke. 
Much  as  there  was  she  wanted  to  know, 
one  thing  lay  nearest.  "What  is  it,"  she 
asked,  "a  feature?" 

"Feature?"  repeated  Miss  Henrietta,  a 
little  sharply  perhaps — "feature?  What 
do  you  mean?  Oh — to  be  sure, — it  's 
some  part  of  your  face,  a  person's  nose 
perhaps, — mouth,  forehead,  hair, — " 

Abbie  Ann  seemed  to  draw  a  relieved 
breath.  "Aunt  Abbie's  hair  is  gray,"  she 
said. 

"It  used  to  be  red,"  said  Miss  Henrietta. 

The  rest  of  the  way  was  in  heavy  silence. 

As  they  reached  their  own  door,  Miss 
Henrietta  spoke  again.     "I  prefer  your 
father  should  explain  why  you  have  not. 
known  your  aunts  before,  you  may  tell 
him  of  this  visit  when  you  write." 

Then  they  went  in. 

Abbie  Ann  hurried  to  Maria,  who  lis- 

133 


Abbie  Ann 

tened  to  it  all  with  eager  interest.  "Is  an 
aunt  a  great-aunt  when  she  gets  old?" 
Abbie  Ann  wondered. 

"I  hope  not,"  said  Maria  decidedly,  for 
Maria  had  an  auntie  of  her  own. 

"What  made  her  so  cross  do  you  sup 
pose?"  queried  the  wondering  Abbie  Ann, 
still  dwelling  on  great-aunt  Abbie. 

Maria  had  no  idea. 

"But  so  's  Miss  Ingram,"  she  reasoned; 
"some  are  and  some  ain't;  't  ain't  a  reason 
— it 's  you." 

But  Abbie  was  studying  her  nose 
closely  and  critically  in  the  glass  of  the 
bureau.  "I  don't  care  if  she  did  say  I  had 
every  Norris  feature,  I  have  n't;  say  it, 
Maria,  say  I  have  n't  got  a  nose  like  great- 
aunt  Abbie's." 


134 


Abbie  was  studying  her  nose  closely  and  critically 


XI 


ITH  considerable  effort  and 
much  ink  Abbie  Ann  wrote  a 
letter  to  her  father  that  very 
evening.  Maria  was  down 
stairs  practising,  so  the  spelling  was  Ab- 
bie's  own: 

"Deer  Father,"  she  wrote,  "we  went  to  see 
Them.  Aunt  Ann  is  not  so  grate  an  Aunt  as 
Aunt  Abbie  is  but  I  like  her  the  Best.  I  hope  I 
will  not  Go  to  see  them  Anny  more.  Maria  is 
well.  I  love  her  Next  to  you  and  Mr.  Mc- 
Ewan.  I  sed  I  wode  be  glad  not  to  have  Them 
for  my  Aunts  and  she  sed  you  cant  be  chew- 
sers  in  kin  its  what  you  have  got.  Miss  Hen 
rietta  said  I  might  ask  you  about  my  aunts  and 
so  I  do. 

"Your  true  daughter 

"ABBIE  ANN  RICHARDSON. 

"Do  you  know  what  is  a  Norris  f eechur  ?  Do 
you  think  I  have  Got  them  deer  Father  I  do  not 
think  I  have." 

137 


Abbie  Ann 

If  Maria  was  well  when  Abbie  so  stated 
it  in  her  letter,  she  was  the  reverse  of  it 
by  the  next  day.  On  the  afternoon's  mail 
Abbie  Ann  received  a  postal  card  which 
looked  businesslike  and  official  and  was 
signed  "A.  M.  McEwan,  Agent,"  and 
which  stated : 

"Box  shipped  to-day.  B,  o,  x,  box.  Con 
tents  selected  with  view  to  midnight  alarms. 
Nothing  liable  to  crunch  audibly  included.  Ar 
ranged  in  quantities  for  bosom  friends  in  sixes. 
C,  a,  r,  a,  m,  e,  1,  s,  caramels." 

Maria  heard  the  news  of  the  postal 
card  listlessly,  and  the  mention  of  the 
caramels  seemed  to  make  her  unhappy. 

"But  Fabe  uses  cream  and  butter  and 
chocolate,  all,  in  his  caramels,  Maria,  they 
are  rich,"  attested  Abbie  anxiously. 

Maria  turned,  anguished.  "I  wish  you 
would  n't  roll  it  around  in  your  mouth  so, 
telling  of  it,"  she  said;  "it  is  as  bad  as  if 
you  were  eating  them !" 

138 


;  Abbie  Ann  wrote  a  letter  to  her  father  " 


Abbie  Ann 

A  little  later  Maria's  cheeks  from  being 
pale  became  sharply  pink  and  being  found 
thus  by  Martha  Lunn,  she  was  hastily  re 
moved  to  that  top-floor  room  called  the 
infirmary.  They  gave  it  even  chances  for 
a  day  to  be  measles,  but,  fortunately 
enough,  since  it  was  a  large  day-  and 
boarding-school  together,  it  was  a  false 
alarm,  and  proved  to  be  Maria's  poor 
stomach. 

"It  's  a  weak  digestion,"  Martha  Lunn 
informed  the  solicitous  Abbie  Ann,  "and 
she  brought  it  with  her" — it  was  as  if 
Martha  was  jealous  for  the  reputation  of 
Miss  Owsley's  Select  School — "but  she  's 
brought  more  too,  she  's  brought  a  good 
disposition  along  with  it  and  that 's  saying 
a  good  deal  when  the  seat  of  the  trouble  's 
near  the  liver !" 

Accordingly,  cheered  by  messages  from 

Maria,  Abbie's  mind  could  revert  to  the 

news  of  the  postal  card.     From  the  first, 

she  had  grasped  that  a  box  from  home  is 

141 


Abbie  Ann 

a  secret  and  confidential  affair,  yet  she 
found  herself  rather  embarrassed  by  that 
fact.  How  was  she  to  keep  it  so?  Yet 
she  anxiously  gathered  that  Mr.  McEwan 
expected  her  to.  She  missed  the  sage 
counselings  of  Maria. 

Her  next  claim  for  advice,  after  that  on 
Maria,  seemed  to  be  with  Mary  Dressel, 
who  might  have  been  her  room-mate  if 
Maria  had  not.  So  might  Katherine  Van 
Antwerp,  but  Abbie  felt  that  somehow 
Katherine  never  seemed  to  be  sought  by 
any  one.  Martha  Lunn  said  the  trouble 
was  with  herself. 

"It  's  a  porkypine's  own  bristles  keep  a 
distance  round  it,  not  ours,"  declared 
Martha.  "I  don't  call  it  pride  that  acts 
oncivil  because  a  body  's  here  on  its 
teacher  aunt's  bounty  and  a  scholarship, 
and  resents  it.  It  's  a  mighty  poor  pride 
that  resents  it  after  it  's  taken  it.  I  call  it 
false  shame,  myself,"  said  Martha. 

At  any  rate,  whatever  the  reason  for  it, 
142 


Abbie  Ann 

Abbie  went  for  advice  about  her  box  to 
Mary  Dressel  and  not  to  Katherine. 

"He  said  Albemarle  County  pippins 
would  be  in  it,  and  maple-sugar  and  hick 
ory-nut  candy/'  Abbie  confided,  "and  a 
cake,  maybe  two,  and  Fabe,  our  cook,  he 
promised  there  should  be  a  turkey, 
roasted,  and  beaten  biscuits.  And  Mr. 
McEwan,  telling  me  about  boxes,  said  you 
lock  your  door,  after  you  've  asked  your 
friends  to  come,  and  then  you  open  the 
box-" 

Mary  Dressel's  lively  countenance  grew 
livelier,  the  scarlet  of  her  cheeks  deep 
ened,  and  her  dimples  came  and  went. 
"No?"  she  said,  as  one  being  informed. 
"And  then?" 

"Did  n't  you  ever  have  a  box?"  Abbie 
asked,  surprised. 

"No,  only  pocket  money,"  regretfully. 
"I  have  to  do  my  treating  in  soda-water. 
Stupid,  is  n't  it?  But  of  course  if  your 
Mr.  Me ,  what  's  his  name,  says  his 

8  143 


Abbie  Ann 

and  your  box  is  a  secret,  why,  of  course, 
it  's  got  to  be  a  secret,  and  that  settles  it ! 
Besides,  it  gives  a  box  the  flavor  of  the 
real  thing,  does  n't  it  ?  I  '11  tell  you,  Abbie 
Ann,  you  let  me  engineer  this  for  you," 
and  Mary's  lively  face  grew  livelier  still. 
"Whom  shall  we  ask  to  come  ?" 

Miss  Owsley's  establishment  was  not 
so  large  a  boarding-school  as  it  was  a  day 
school,  and  it  so  happened  that  the  boarding 
girls  were  all  older  than  Abbie  and  Maria. 

"Why,"  said  Abbie  Ann,  a  little  at  a 
loss,  now  that  it  came  to  the  point,  to 
know  who  were  her  bosom  friends  beyond 
Maria,  "why-" 

"You  leave  it  to  me,"  again  said  the 
lively  Mary,  "or,  no,  I  '11  tell  you  whom  to 
ask.  I  '11  see  'em  first,  that 's  the  best  way, 
then  you  go  and  ask  them.  Rosina,  and 
Bess,  for  a  start,  and  Florry  and  Kitty 
next,  we  can  have  more  than  six,  Ab 
bie,  a  whole  turkey,  my  goodness!  Ask 
Henrietta  Havering,  too,  and  Clarice 
144 


Abbie  Ann 

Carr" — was  it  possible  this  lively  Mary 
was  suggesting  all  that  set  known  as  her 
particular  friends? — "and,  I  suppose  you 
ought,  you  '11  have  to  have  Katherine  Van 
Antwerp,  seeing  who  you  are,  and  who 
she  is—" 

Abbie  did  not  at  all  understand.  "Oh !" 
she  said,  with  prejudice,  "do  we  have  to 
have  her,  Mary  ?  Why  do  we  have  to  ?" 

Mary  looked  surprised.  "I  supposed 
on  account  of  the  scholarship  you  would 
feel  you  had  to,"  she  said,  "but  if  you  don't 
want  her,  I  am  sure  I  don't,  for  we  have 
all  tried  to  be  nice  with  her,  and  she — " 

"The  scholarship?"  Abbie  had  no  idea 
what  Mary  was  talking  about.  Martha 
Lunn  had  mentioned  this,  too,  but  though 
Abbie  was  altogether  hazy  about  what  a 
scholarship  was,  she  was  not  going  to  tell 
Mary  Dressel  so.  The  Abbies  object  to 
admitting  they  don't  know. 

"We  won't  have  her,"  she  declared,  as 
the  safest  way  of  dismissing  the  subject. 

145 


Abbie  Ann 

"But  won't  Martha  Limn  find  out  about 
the  box  when  it  conies,  and  won't  she  have 
to  tell?" 

"You  leave  it  to  me,"  said  Mary,  grown 
lively  again.  "I  've  been  here  longer  than 
you  have."  And  accordingly  Abbie  left 
it,  only  inquiring  about  one  thing  further. 

"Won't  we  have  to  dress  up,  since  it  is 
a  party?"  she  asked. 

Mary  grew  livelier  and  laughed  as  she 
met  the  anxious  gaze  of  Abbie  Ann.  Per 
haps  she  was  wondering  what  Abbie 
would  evolve  tc  dress  up  in.  "Why,  yes," 
she  said,  "dress  up,  it 's  just  the  thing." 

All  the  guests  accepted.  There  seemed 
to  be  a  disposition  among  them  to  giggle 
when  they  did  so.  Indeed,  they  giggled 
all  that  next  day.  Miss  Henrietta  Owsley 
seemed  amused  over  something,  too,  every 
time  she  noticed  Abbie  Richardson,  and 
so,  grimly,  did  Martha  Lunn. 

Mary  Dressel  seemed  bubbling  over 
with  lively  spirits,  such  as  pirouetting 
146 


Abbie  passes  Katharine  Van  Antwerp  in  the  hall 


Abbie  Ann 

about  the  halls  whenever  Abbie  chanced 
to  see  her. 

At  recess  she  sought  Abbie.  "It  's 
come,"  she  whispered,  with  large  secrecy; 
"it  's  up-stairs  and  safely  hid  away  in 
your  room!" 

She  meant  the  box!  Not  even  Maria 
could  have  been  such  a  helper  as  this, 
though  Abbie  could  not  imagine  how 
Mary  could  have  managed  it. 

In  going  to  and  from  classes  that  day, 
Abbie  Ann  Richardson  seemed  to  do  noth 
ing  but  pass  Katherine  Van  Antwerp 
going  to  her  classes  too,  though  it  is  just 
possible  she  noticed  Katherine  because  it 
was  on  her  mind  that  she  had  not  included 
her.  She  wondered,  too,  what  a  scholar 
ship  was. 

She  went  out  of  her  way  after  school  to 
seek  Martha  to  ask  about  it,  and  found  her 
counting  laundry  in  the  linen  closet. 

"What  's  a  scholarship,  Martha?"  she 
inquired. 

149 


Abbie  Ann 

"It  's  what  enables  a  person  what  's 
proved  she  's  capable  of  taking  a  edyca- 
tion,  to  get  it,"  said  Martha,  promptly. 

JT  ain't  a  case  of  money  thrown  away  as 
with  some  of  the  rest  of  you.  Some  rich 
body  arranges  it,  and  some  brainy  body 
uses  it.  It  's  a  loan  to  be  paid  back  in 
brains.  Think  you  '11  aim  to  get  one?" 

"Martha,"  said  Abbie,  changing  the 
subject  as  it  became  personal;  "did  you 
ever  have  a  secret?"  She  asked  it  as  if 
the  weight  of  one  were  bothersome.  "It 's 
a  thing  you  have  to  keep,  you  know — " 

"Then  I  'd  keep  it,"  said  Martha  Lunn, 
promptly. 

Mary  Dressel  said  she  would  come  to 
Abbie's  room  early  that  evening  to  help 
her  dress,  and  to  prepare  matters.  When 
she  arrived  she  had  hunted  out  a  partyfied 
summer  dress  for  herself,  adorned  with  a 
sash  and  ribbons,  but  Abbie  eclipsed  her. 

The  box  had  been  temporarily  stored, 
by  some  remarkable  machination  on 


Abbie  Ann 

Mary's  part,  in  Abbie's  closet  for  secret 
keeping,  and  in  that  same  closet  a  trunk, 
also  was  stored  for  safe-keeping,  the  con 
tents  of  which  Abbie  Ann  had  by  no 
means  forgotten.  To-night  she  had  gone 
into  its  treasured  contents,  and  was  don 
ning  part  of  the  same  when  the  lively 
Mary  arrived. 

They  conversed  in  low  and  secret  whis 
pers.  The  skirt  Abbie  Ann  was  getting 
into,  was  tartan  and  kilted,  and  it  was  to 
be  worn,  as  it  developed,  with  a  full  white 
waist  beneath  an  abbreviated  jacket,  the 
whole  surmounted  by  a  tartan  sash  dia- 
gonaling  the  wearer's  person  from  one 
shoulder  to  the  opposite  hip.  She  ex 
plained  to  Mary  that  it  was  called  a  Scotch 
costume,  and  was  also  set  down  in  the 
fashion  paper  as  "a  fancy  dress."  Per 
haps  Abbie  had  grown  since  it  was  made, 
or  else  the  dressmaker's  skill  had  been 
limited,  for  the  tartan  kilt  was  short  even 
as  kilts  go,  and  the  jacket  part  proved 


Abbie  Ann 

filled  to  bursting.  Mary  Dressel  seemed 
overcome  as  she  viewed  her  young  friend 
after  she  was  in  it. 

Abbie,  however,  was  concerned  in  point 
ing  out  how  she  had  adorned  the  room 
with  flowers  in  numerous  bunches. 

"I  took  them  off  my  hats,"  she  ex 
plained  to  Mary,  "I  never  seemed  to  be 
using  'em  that  way!" 

She  also  had  pulled  and  shoved  and 
pushed  Mr.  McEwan's  box  out  from  the 
closet  to  the  middle  of  the  floor  in  antici 
pation,  and  returning  to  examination  of  it 
again,  she  promptly  burst  the  sleeve  of 
her  Scotch  costume  in  stooping,  but  Mary 
kindly  pinned  it  together. 

The  exigencies  of  hostess  are  disturbing 
if  one  is  not  used  to  them.  "What  have 
we  got  to  cut  a  turkey  with,  Mary?"  Ab 
bie  queried,  anxiously,  "and  how  are  we 
ever  to  open  the  box?  It  's  nailed.  Some 
body '11  hear  us !" 

"Hush,"  said  Mary,  with  lively  caution ; 

152 


Abbie  Ann 

"sh-h— ,  there,  I  knew  it  would  come !  It 's 
Martha,  fly !  There  in  the  closet,  latch  the 
door,  quick!  Don't  open  it  until  every 
thing  is  quiet!" 

Abbie  flew.  And  did  the  lights  go 
down?  Yes,  she  could  witness  through 
her  closet  transom  that  they  did.  But 
why  did  not  Mary  come  in  the  closet  too? 
Could  she  have  waited  to  turn  the  lights 
low,  and  then  gone  under  the  bed? 

And  what  then  ?  Abbie  held  her  breath. 
Was  Martha  Lunn  choosing  night,  of  all 
times,  to  do  spring  cleaning,  in  Novem 
ber,  in  Abbie  Ann's  room?  She  heard 
heavy  articles  moving,  and  heavy  feet 
tramping,  the  roll  of  castors  across  the 
floor,  and  then  hammering.  And  did  she 
— yes,  unquestionably,  she  seemed  to  hear 
suppressed  laughter.  And  chuckles? 
Was  it  Martha  Lunn's  chuckles? 

Abbie  could  not  understand.  She 
started  to  open  the  door  despite  injunc 
tions,  but  tones  of  another  voice  she  knew 

153 


Abbie  Ann 

arrested  her,  the  tones  of  Miss  Henrietta. 
Was  she,  too,  laughing?  Then  came  a 
sudden  buzz  and  chatter  of  animated  ar 
rivals. 

Abbie  Ann  walked  out  as  the  lights 
flared  up.  There  were  candles  on  the 
mantel  in  the  usually  empty  candlesticks, 
and  Martha  was  lighting  them.  The  party 
was  there  in  both  senses,  one  part  of  it  in 
festive  dresses  and  ribbons,  and  the  other 
part,  the  box,  neatly  placed  on  a  paper  and 
open.  In  the  room  sat  a  table,  no,  two 
cutting-tables,  put  together,  with  a  cloth 
laid  thereon  to  be  spread  upon  them,  and 
with  implements  thereon,  too,  such  as 
knives,  forks,  paper-plates  and  other  ar 
ticles  of  attack  and  conveyance  useful  in 
food-matters.  On  a  side-table  were 
lemons,  ice,  sugar,  glasses,  and  a  bowl, 
Miss  Owsley's  contribution,  so  it  devel 
oped  later,  to  the  party,  though  by  now 
she  and  Martha  Lunn  had  melted  away, 
and  vanished ! 

154 


Abbie  Ann 

For  Miss  Owsley  and  Martha  had 
known  about  it  all  along !  Miss  Henrietta 
had  had  a  communication  concerning  the 
box  too,  her  note  being  from  Abbie  Ann's 
father,  asking  if  it  might  come ;  and  later 
she  had  another  note  telling  her  that  it  had 
started ! 

Moreover,  it  was  the  expected  thing  in 
Miss  Owsley's  school  for  a  party  to  fol 
low,  whenever  a  box  came,  and  Mary 
Dressel  knew  it !  Miss  Henrietta's  theory 
was,  that  the  sooner  the  party  was  given, 
the  quicker  the  box  was  gone,  and  the 
more  of  the  school  invited  to  partake  of 
it,  the  less  per  young  stomachs  to  go  into 
them  and  the  better  chance  of  no  after 
consequences  for  anybody!  And  grim 
Martha  Lunn  had  entered  into  the  joke 
with  the  lively  Mary,  and  Miss  Henrietta 
had  smiled  too,  and  let  it  go  on. 

Abbie  Ann,  coming  out  to  this  lively 
information  and  gay  laughter,  did  not 
know  whether  to  stamp  her  foot  and  be 

155 


Abbie  Ann 

mad,  or  to  take  the  matter  as  it  was  meant, 
and  laughed  too. 

She  stood  there,  in  her  Scotch  skirts, 
deciding,  while  the  party,  breathless  with 
laughter  and  the  spectacle  of  the  tartan 
splendor,  waited,  when  the  door  opened 
again  and  Martha  Lunn  returned.  She 
was  bearing  something  in  her  big,  strong 
arms,  something  wrapped  in  a  blanket, 
which  she  deposited  on  the  bed  and  which, 
suddenly  discarding  its  wrappings  and  sit 
ting  up,  pink  with  the  joy  of  it,  proved  to 
be  Maria. 

"She  can  have  a  lemonade  and  a  beat 
biscuit,  since  you  say  you  got  'em  in  the 
box,  but  nary  'nother  thing,  mind  that," 
said  Martha. 

And  Abbie  Ann,  in  her  joy  at  beholding 
Maria,  forgot  the  question  of  temper  she 
was  deciding,  and  flew  to  embrace  her. 

They  left  the  opening  of  her  box,  all  but 
the  nailed  cover  which  Martha  had  re 
moved,  to  Abbie,  while  Mary  and  her  as- 

156 


Abbie's  box  arrives 


Abbie  Ann 

sistants  spread  the  table,  and  the  remain 
der  made  the  lemonade.  But  before  Abbie 
Ann  had  done  more  than  fold  back  the 
upper  layer  of  white  paper,  Florry  Morton 
made  a  remark. 

"It  is  as  much  fun  as  the  Evelyn  Norris 
scholarship  treat  at  Easter,"  she  an 
nounced. 

Abbie  Ann  was  so  surprised  she  laid 
down  the  envelop  she  had  found  within 
the  box,  and  looked  around  though  the 
envelop  did  undoubtedly  contain  verses. 

"What 's  the  Evelyn  Norris  scholarship 
treat  ?"  she  asked  Florrie. 

At  this,  the  party  all  looked  at  Abbie 
oddly,  that  is  all  except  Maria  who  evi 
dently  had  not  caught  the  connection  up 
to  now,  either. 

"We  supposed  you  knew,  it  's  an  'in 
memory'  endowment,"  said  Florry,  hesi 
tatingly;  "Katherine  Van  Antwerp  has 
the  scholarship  and  the  treat  is  a  party 
with  music  and  flowers  every  spring  in 

159 


Abbie  Ann 

memory  of  Evelyn  Norris.  Two  old  ladies 
named  Norris  established  it." 

Abbie  Ann,  who  was  on  the  floor  by  the 
box,  hardly  seemed  at  first  to  grasp  what 
it  meant.  Yet  Evelyn  Norris  was  her 
own  young  mother,  and  the  scholarship 
was  proving  to  be  something  in  memory 
of  that  mother !  The  old  ladies'  part  in  it 
hardly  mattered!  And  as  this  much 
dawned  on  Abbie  she  dashed  the  envelop 
to  the  ground,  darted  up,  and,  tartan  kilts 
and  all,  banged  open  the  door  and  flew  out 
of  the  room. 

When  she  returned  she  was  dragging 
Katherine  Van  Antwerp  by  the  hand. 
Taken  by  storm  and  the  impetuous  on 
slaught  of  Abbie,  something  had  moved 
Katherine  to  come;  perhaps  it  was  jus 
tice  to  that  "In  Memory  of  Evelyn  Nor 
ris,"  together  with  the  sudden  and  ardent 
embraces  of  the  daughter  of  Evelyn  that 
brought  her.  Moreover,  her  usually  pale 
face  was  pink,  and  she  could  n't  keep  her 
160 


Abbie  Ann 

eye-glasses  on,  they  were  dangling  on 
their  cord,  because  of, — could  it  be,  for 
laughter?  Indeed,  since  it  was  her  first 
view  of  her  hostess  in  the  scant  kilt  of  a 
Scotch  costume,  one  realized  the  most  self- 
contained  Katherine  in  the  world  could 
hardly  have  helped  it  had  she  wanted  to. 
As  it  was,  it  broke  the  ice  of  her  shy  re 
serve. 

"She  's  my  best  friend  now,  Katherine 
is,"  said  Abbie  with  emphasis,  bringing 
her  in.  "Maria  was,  but  I  'm  Abbie  Nor- 
ris,  and — and  the  other  is — is  Evelyn 
Norris,  and — and  so,  you  see,  Katherine 
has  got  to  let  herself  be." 

Later,  over  the  turkey  and  the  lesser 
glories  of  the  box, — for  the  turkey  being 
Fabe's  own  affair,  was  bigger  even  than 
that  mighty  structure  of  his  art,  the  cake, 
— they  read  the  verses. 

They  were  by  Mr.  McEwan,  Abbie  ex 
plained,  and  hospitably  made  the  guests 
feel  they  had  every  right  to  their  share, 

161 


Abbie  Ann 

though  they  were  addressed  to  Miss  Abbie 
Ann  Richardson,  and  said: 

"Believe    me    if    all    these    digestion's    sweet 

harms 

Which  I  send  thee  so  rashly  to-day 
Are  devoured  by  thee  only,  't  is  feared  thy 

young  charms 

With  abruptness  will  fade  quite  away. 
There  is  here  quite  enough  for  all  friends  of 

thy  heart, 

Let  thy  appetite  be  as  it  will ; 
Else  above  the  dire  ruin  of  what  thou  then  art 
Pious  warning  will  tell  of  thee  still." 


162 


XII 

next  day,  which  was  Fri 
day,  before  an  answer  had 
time  to  come  to  Abbie's  letter 
to  her  father,  Miss  Henrietta 
sent  for  the  youngest  pupil,  who,  truth  to 
tell,  went  a  little  fearfully.  She  felt  that 
she  had  a  right  to  dread  such  summons 
since  that  last  one  resulting  in  the  visit  to 
her  great-aunts.  Nor  was  she  wrong 
about  it. 

"Abbie,"  said  Miss  Henrietta  briefly, 
"your  aunts  wish  you  to  come  and  stay 
with  them  until  Sunday  afternoon.  The 
carriage  is  waiting." 

Miss    Henrietta    at    her    desk    spoke 

shortly  and  also  avoided  looking  at  the 

youngest  pupil.     Perhaps  she,  like  other 

peacemakers  before  her,  was  wishing  she 

163 


Abbie  Ann 

had  let  well  enough  alone  before  setting 
this  thing  going.  At  any  rate  she  spoke 
briefly,  then  took  up  her  pen.  The  matter 
was  ended. 

But  not  so  with  the  victim.  For  a  mo 
ment  she  stood  as  if  stunned,  and  then 
clutched  Miss  Owsley's  sleeve.  Some 
things  are  too  appalling  to  be  believed. 
Her  intense  little  face  might  have  been  a 
masque  of  tragedy.  "But  I  don't  have  to 
go,  please  say  I  don't  have  to  go,  Miss 
Henrietta !" 

Some  people  are  moved  by  sympathy 
one  way,  some  another;  it  made  Miss 
Owsley  cross.  "Now,  Abbie,"  she  said, 
"we  want  no  scenes.  Martha  is  packing 
your  bag.  Go  and  get  ready."  And  Miss 
Henrietta,  closing  her  lips  firmly,  returned 
to  her  writing. 

Abbie  Ann  went  out  slowly.     Martha 
was  putting  a  little  nightgown  into  the 
bag  when  the  youngest  pupil  came  in ;  that 
small  person  was  crying. 
164 


Abbie  Ann 

"It  's  dreadful  swelling  on  the  nose," 
remarked  Martha,  looking  up,  "which 
ain't  to  say  becoming  to  red  hair.  What 
you  been  using  this  tooth  brush  on,  any 
how?" 

Abbie  Ann  mopped  her  eyes,  "My  over 
shoes,"  she  said. 

"I  thought  it  could  n't  'a'  been  your 
teeth,"  said  Martha,  gazing  at  the  article 
dubiously. 

But  Abbie  Ann  was  pulling  her  best 
buttoned  shoes  out  of  the  closet.  "I  reckon 
you  'd  cry  too,  Martha  Lunn.  I  think  Ab 
bie  Ann  is  an  awful  name,  anyhow,  and  if 
they  had  n't  been  my  aunts,  I  would  n't 
have  had  to  be  it." 

"You  might  've  been  Samantha  Ann," 
rejoined  Martha,  "I  've  got  a  Aunt  Sa 
mantha  Simpson  Sanders." 

Abbie  paused  in  the  shoe  buttoning. 
"Sometimes  I  think  you  're  right  com 
forting,  Martha,"  she  acknowledged. 

Perhaps  Miss  Henrietta  was  more  con- 

165 


Abbie  Ann 

cerned  than  she  cared  to  show.  She  was 
down-stairs — by  chance,  was  it? — and 
came  to  the  door  to  see  the  youngest  pupil 
off.  She  had  a  letter  too,  for  Abbie  Ann. 

"The  postman  just  brought  it  in  time," 
she  said  with  a  hand  on  the  little  shoulder. 
Then  she  called  to  the  driver  of  the  closed 
carriage  at  the  curb : 

"Jennings,  are  you  to  take  Miss  Abbie 
Ann  straight  home?" 

"No,  ma'am,"  came  from  out  Jennings' 
furs,  for  the  day  was  raw,  "Miss  Abbie 
and  Miss  Ann  are  waiting  at  the  mil 
liner's." 

Now  there  are  vehicles  and  there  are 
equipages.  Abbie  Ann  had  never  ridden 
in  an  equipage  before,  and  a  Jennings  in 
furs  is  an  imposing  sight.  She  got  in 
looking  very  small  when  the  door  was  shut 
upon  her. 

With  a  little  gloved  fist,   she  rubbed 
fiercely  at  the  tears  that  would  come,  and 
with  the  other  hand  held  to  her  letter. 
166 


Abbie  Ann 

In  time  the  carriage  drew  up  before  a 
store,  and  a  plump  little  girl  in  brown, 
with  loose  burnished  curls  beneath  a  big 
brown  hat  and  with  a  nose  inclining  to  be 
pink  at  the  tip,  came  forth.  A  young 
girl,  waiting  apparently  at  the  door,  took 
her  little  gloved  hand  and  led  her  back 
through  the  store  between  cases  of  rib 
bons  and  feathers  and  artificial  flowers 
to  a  space  curtained  off  in  the  rear. 

"Well,"  said  a  grim  voice  as  they  went 
in  between  the  curtains,  "she  did  let  you 
come  ?" 

It  was  Aunt  Abbie  Norris.  Time  had 
not  softened  the  aspect  of  her. 

But  Aunt  Ann  Norris,  who  was  sitting 
in  a  chair  with  a  hand-glass  before  the 
mirror,  called  the  little  niece  to  her  and 
bent  to  kiss  her.  Aunt  Ann's  face  was 
very  white  for  an  old,  old  woman,  except 
on  the  cheek  bones,  where  it  was  very  red. 
It  made  her  look  older,  and  it  made  Abbie 
Ann  feel  afraid.  "Old"  is  prettier  when 
167 


Abbie  Ann 

its  wrinkles  are  allowed  to  show,  than 
when  it  wears  white  and  red  upon  its  face 
to  hide  them. 

Aunt  Ann  Norris,  before  the  mirror 
holding  a  hand-glass,  was  getting  a  new 
bonnet.  The  little  niece,  having  been 
kissed  by  her,  was  told  to  get  upon  a  chair 
while  she  returned  to  the  business. 

The  milliner  lady,  at  this,  held  a  spray 
of  airy  feathers,  glittering  with  spangles, 
against  the  bonnet  upon  old  Aunt  Ann's 
head.  Then  she  laid  that  aside  and  tried  a 
bunch  of  purple  flowers.  Aunt  Abbie  fa 
vored  the  flowers,  the  lady  was  inclined 
to  the  feather. 

Aunt  Ann  seemed  to  be  gathering  up 
her  courage  and  then  spoke  a  little  un 
certainly,  "How  would  it  do,"  she  said 
timidly,  "to  use  both?" 

Aunt  Abbie  arose  with  abruptness.  "It 
is  unbelievable,  your  love  of  dress,  Ann," 
she  said,  and  the  lace  barbs  on  her  head 
piece  and  the  bangles  quivered  with  the 
168 


Aunt  Abbie  and  Abbie  at  the  milliner's 


Abbie  Ann 

decision  of  it,  "we  will  take  the  bonnet, 
Madame  Breaux,  and  with  the  flowers. 
Good  afternoon." 

They  were  almost  out  of  the  store  when 
something  seemed  to  strike  Aunt  Abbie 
about  the  plump  little  niece  preceding  her. 
"Child,"  she  said,  "who  selected  that  hat 
you  have  on?  Is  that  your  best  bon 
net?" 

"Yes  'm,  Miss  Henrietta  bought  it." 

Miss  Henrietta  and  Aunt  Abbie  Norris 
seemed  to  be  of  two  minds  about  most 
things. 

"Madame  Breaux,"  said  Aunt  Abbie, 
bringing  the  party  to  a  halt,  "show  us  hats 
suitable  for  this  child." 

And  when  Abbie  Ann  next  entered  the 
carriage,  following  behind  the  two  old 
ladies,  she  bore  upon  her  burnished  red 
curls  a  great,  soft-brimmed,  feathered 
thing  that  might  have  been  the  ideal  of 
her  finery-loving  little  soul's  own  dream. 
Abbie  Ann  was  a  Norris  in  more  ways 
171 


Abbie  Ann 

than  in  features.  It  even  heartened  her 
up  for  a  time,  and  presently  she  followed 
the  old  ladies  from  the  carriage  into  the 
house  with  a  pretty  fair  grace. 

But  something  depressing  seemed  to 
come  upon  her  at  dinner.  Nobody  talked, 
and  Jennings  presented  things  suddenly 
on  a  silver  waiter. 

Abbie  felt  forlorner;  waves  of  misery, 
one  after  another,  rose  up  out  of  the  pit  of 
her  little  stomach  and  enveloped  her.  She 
could  not  eat,  lumps  were  in  her  throat 
until  it  ached.  It  was  homesickness,  but 
she  had  never  heard  it  called  that. 

Presently  Aunt  Abbie  spied  the  little 
guest's  plate.  "Sit  up,"  she  said,  not  more 
grimly  than  nature  impelled  all  utterance 
from  her  to  be;  "sit  up  and  eat  your  din 
ner." 

Abbie  Ann  sat  up  and  began  swallow 
ing  pieces  almost  whole,  though  what  they 
were,  farther  than  food,  she  had  small 
idea.  In  time  the  meal  came  to  an  end  and 
she  could  get  down. 

172 


Abbie  Ann 

It  seemed  a  solemn  house,  heavy  and 
subduing.  Like  the  carriage  that  was  an 
equipage,  it  made  Abbie  Ann  feel  small. 
Aunt  Ann  took  her  by  the  hand  and  led 
her  into  the  room  opening  out  of  the  din 
ing  room.  Here  she  pointed  to  a  chair,  a 
chair  one  would  almost  naturally  avoid, 
with  a  bony-like  structure  of  spindles  for 
a  back,  and  with  ungracefully  spraddling 
legs.  "This,  Abbie  Ann,"  she  said  with 
no  little  pride,  "is  the  chair  in  which  Ben 
jamin  Franklin  sat  when  he  called  on  our 
Grandmother  Gwynne,  and  this,"  laying 
her  beringed  old  wrinkled  hand  on  the 
beveled  edge  of  a  table,  "is  where  the  Mar 
quis  de  Lafayette — " 

"Now  Ann,"  it  was  the  voice  of  Aunt 
Abbie  coming  in  from  the  dining  room, 
"you  are  mixing  it  up  again — " 

Aunt  Ann  looked  put  out.  Her  old 
voice  grew  quite  decided.  "Not  at  all, 
Sister  Abbie,  it  was  in  this  chair  that — " 

" — Lafayette  sat,"  said  Aunt  Abbie, 
appearing  in  the  doorway. 

173 


Abbie  Ann 

Aunt  Ann  looked  quite  flushed.  "No, 
sister,  Lafayette  wrote,  and  Franklin 
sat-" 

Aunt  Abbie  tapped  the  table  smartly 
with  her  knuckles,  "It  was  at  this  table, 
Ann,  that  Franklin  wrote — " 

— "but  he  did  n't  write,  Sister,  he  sat — " 
poor  Miss  Ann  Norris  was  almost  tear 
ful. 

" — that  Franklin  wrote  to  his  brother 
in  Boston,"  stated  Aunt  Abbie  firmly. 
"Try  to  remember  these  things  as  they 
are,  Ann,"  and  Aunt  Abbie  retired. 

"Abbie  Ann,"  said  Aunt  Ann  Norris, 
recovering  herself  as  she  could,  "do  you 
know  who  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette 
was?" 

"No,  ma'am,"  said  Abbie  Ann. 

"Dear  me,"  said  the  old  lady;  "but  you 
know  Benjamin  Franklin?" 

"No,  ma'am,"  said  the  wretched  Abbie. 

After  which  they  all  three  went  into 
the  parlor  and  Aunt  Ann  read  aloud  bits 

174 


"  '  This,  is  where  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette  — 


Abbie  Ann 

from  the  evening  paper  and  Aunt  Abbie 
made  grim  comments  thereon. 

"Dear  me,"  reported  Aunt  Ann,  "an 
other  burglary !  It  terrifies  me  to  read  of 
how-" 

"Then  I  would  n't  read  it,"  said  Aunt 
Abbie,  and  Aunt  Ann  was  silent  for  a 
time.  But  before  long  she  revived. 

"Some  one  named  Smith  is  dead,"  she 
reported,  "J.  T.  or  J.  F.  I  can't  just  make 
out,  J.  F.,  I  believe — " 

"Do  you  know  anybody  named  either  ?" 
inquired  Aunt  Abbie  briefly. 

No,  Aunt  Ann  confessed,  she  did  n't 
know  any  Smiths  at  all,  but — 

"Then  what  matter?"  snapped  Aunt 
Abbie. 

And  all  the  while  Abbie  Ann  sat  on  a 
square  stool  to  which  she  had  been  directed 
and  wondered  why  they  had  asked  her  to 
come.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  people 
sometimes  do  things  because  they  think 
they  ought.  The  two  old  ladies  were  pretty 
177 


Abbie  Ann 

near  as  ill  at  ease  as  the  guest  and  evi 
dently  had  no  idea  what  to  do  with  her 
now  they  had  her  with  them  and  perhaps 
they  were  as  relieved  as  Abbie  Ann  when 
Eliza  came  to  take  her  to  bed.  They  kissed 
her  good  night  hastily. 

All  this  while  Abbie  had  not  read  her 
letter.  She  thought  to  do  so  now,  but 
Eliza  kept  waiting  and  offering  to  unbut 
ton  her  clothes,  as  if  to  get  it  through  with 
and  over.  It  is  n't  pleasant  to  undress 
with  an  Eliza  waiting  for  you  to  get 
through,  but  Abbie  Ann  was  subdued  past 
any  will  of  her  own  by  this  time,  and  it 
was  in  a  meek  voice,  after  she  had  been  as 
sisted  in  between  cold  linen  sheets,  that  she 
asked  if  she  might  read  her  letter  in  bed. 

Eliza  flared  up  the  gas  with  no  very 
good  grace,  which  further  so  disturbed 
Abbie  that  she  found  herself  having  to 
spell  every  other  word.  Finding  this  bid 
fair  to  take  all  night,  Eliza  offered  to  read 
it  to  her. 

178 


Abbie  Ann 

After  various  items  of  home  news  the 
letter  ended  with,  "And  now,  my  little 
girl,  it  is  enough  for  you  to  know  that 
Miss  Abbie  and  Miss  Ann  are  your  aunts, 
and  that  it  was  your  mother's  wish  that 
you  should  love  them." 

Eliza  was  deeply  interested.  She  for 
got  to  be  in  a  hurry.  "Did  n't  you  always 
know  they  were  your  aunts  ?"  she  inquired. 

"No,"  said  Abbie  Ann,  "I  did  n't  know 
anything  about  them." 

"Dear,  dear!"  said  Eliza,  "Miss  Eve 
lyn's  own  child  and  never  to  have  heard  of 
Miss  Abbie  and  Miss  Ann!" 

"Did  she, — did  my  mother  have  to  know 
them  too,  Eliza  ?"  queried  Abbie  Ann,  sit 
ting  up  in  bed  in  her  interest. 

"Did  Miss  Evelyn—"  Eliza  began,  then 
broke  off;  "this  was  her  own  little  bed, 
and  her  own  room  you  are  in  this  minute." 
Now  it  was  a  pretty  room,  smaller  than  the 
rest.  Its  walls  and  its  rug  were  blue,  and 
its  pretty  bed  was  carved,  and  had  a 
179 


Abbie  Ann 

scrolled  head  and  foot.  A  chest  of  draw 
ers  stood  against  the  wall,  and  over  a  table 
hung  an  oval,  gilt-framed  glass.  And  it 
had  been  her  mother's  room ! 

"Oh,  Eliza,  did  she  have  to  come  to  stay 
here,  too?  How  was  it  all,  Eliza,  why 
did  n't  I  know  about  it  before  ?" 

But  Eliza  drew  in.  "It  is  n't  for  me  to 
be  talkin',  I  'm  thinkin',"  she  said  ab 
ruptly.  "Good  night,  Miss  Abbie  Ann." 

Now  whether  the  little  girl  in  that  bed 
dreamed  it  or  not,  she  could  not  tell,  but  it 
seemed  to  her,  the  next  morning,  that  in 
the  night  she  had  waked,  and  had  seen 
Aunt  Abbie  standing  by  the  bed  and  look 
ing  at  her,  but  that  as  she  opened  her  eyes, 
Aunt  Abbie  faded  away  and  left  her  in  the 
darkness. 


180 


Aunt  Abbie  appearing  in  Abbie's  room  at  night 


XIII 

T  breakfast,  Aunt  Abbie  was 
so  grim  that  the  little  Abbie 
was  overcome  to  think  she 
even  had  dared  to  dream  about 
her  in  the  night.  Aunt  Ann  asked  her  sis 
ter  if  she  would  have  oatmeal?  "Do  I  ever 
have  it?"  rejoined  Aunt  Abbie.  Aunt 
Ann  met  this  amiably.  "It  is  said  the 
Scotch  have  cultivated  their  literature  on 
oatmeal,"  she  observed.  "Then  when  I 
am  Scotch  and  cultivating  literature,  I 
will  eat  it,  and  not  before,"  said  Aunt  Ab 
bie.  But  the  rest  of  the  morning  passed 
quickly,  for  Eliza,  more  amiable  by  day, 
and  guessing  many  things,  asked  if  Abbie 
Ann  would  like  to  go  to  market  with  the 
cook. 

At  luncheon  Aunt  Abbie  did  not  appear, 

'83 


Abbie  Ann 

confessing  to  a  headache,  it  seemed.  "A 
most  unusual  thing,"  Aunt  Ann  explained 
to  Abbie  Ann,  "an  almost  unheard-of 
thing;  I  do  not  remember  your  Aunt  Ab 
bie  to  have  had  a  headache  in  years." 

"She  says  you  are  to  take  Miss  Abbie 
Ann  for  a  drive,  Miss  Ann,"  here  ex 
plained  Eliza,  "and  that  she  wishes  to  be 
left  alone." 

"Very  well,  Eliza,"  said  Miss  Ann 
meekly,  and  accordingly  she  and  Abbie 
Ann,  gorgeous  in  their  new  head-gear, 
went  out  for  a  drive. 

For  some  reason  Abbie  felt  able  to 
talk  with  Aunt  Ann  and  after  a  while  ven 
tured  a  remark  about  the  thing  puzzling 
her.  "Did  you  always  know  there  was  a 
me,  Aunt  Ann?"  she  queried. 

Aunt  Ann  looked  troubled,  and 
smoothed  the  fur  tails  to  her  stole  with  a 
hand  that  always  trembled  a  little.  "Your 
Aunt  Abbie,"  she  remarked  with  seeming 
irrelevance,  after  a  little  pause,  "is  a 
184 


Abbie  Ann 

strong  character,  and  a  person  of  great 
discretion  and  reserve ;  a  person  of  singu 
lar  reserve,  my  dear.  And  in  the  latter,  I 
trust,"  added  Aunt  Ann  hastily,  "I  resem 
ble  her." 

Now  Abbie  Ann,  listening,  did  not  un 
derstand  a  word.  Nor  did  she  understand 
Aunt  Ann  herself,  or  she  would  have 
known  there  was  more  to  follow. 

"Neither  am  I  without  proper  pride  in 
family,"  declared  Aunt  Ann;  "I  'm  sure 
I  'm  as  proud  of  blood  as  ever  Sister  is :  it 
is  n't  every  one,  my  dear,  who  could  be 
'Daughters'  through  two  lines,  and 
'Dames'  through  four.  Not  that  I  'd  have 
you  think  I  objected  to  shaving  soap. 
Why  should  n't  a  man's  father  make  shav 
ing  soap?  I  've  been  told  it  was  very 
good  soap.  And  I  'm  sure,  when  you 
think  about  it,  Benjamin  Franklin's  father 
made  candles,  not  so  different,  you  see? 
But  Sister  Abbie  could  n't  seem  to  stand 
the  family  likeness  on  the  soap  wrappers. 

185 


Abbie  Ann 

But  he  's  dead  now,  and  the  business  too, 
I  've  been  told,  and  John  is  in  coal  mines. 
But  I  would  n't  have  you  feel  I  consider 
soap  as  so  different  from  whale  oil,  where 
ours  came  from,  my  dear." 

Abbie  Ann's  countenance,  as  she  gazed 
on  her  Aunt  Ann,  showed  wonder  and 
bewilderment;  what  was  Aunt  Ann  talk 
ing  about? 

But  the  old  lady  had  herself  all  wrought 
up;  she  pulled  the  strap  and  told  Jennings, 
"home."  But  on  the  way,  not  far  from 
Miss  Owsley's  Select  School,  she  had  Jen 
nings  check  the  horses,  while  she  pointed 
out  a  house  to  Abbie  Ann  not  unlike  Miss 
Henrietta's  own,  though  not  so  imposing 
a  mansion  as  hers  and  Aunt  Abbie's  by 
any  means.  "This  is  where  John  Richard 
son,  your  father,  lived,"  she  said,  "when 
we  first  came  to  hear  of  him." 

Aunt  Abbie  appeared  at  dinner,  but 
taller,  straighter,  grimmer,  if  possible, 
than  before.  Conversation  died  away,  and 
186 


Abbie  Ann 

not  even  a  frozen  pudding,  cream  without 
and  marvels  of  candied  mysteries  within  to 
the  uninitiated  Abbie,  could  revive  it. 

Afterward,  Abbie  Ann  was  given  a 
book  and  told  to  sit  on  the  little  stool  and 
read;  now  the  little  stool  was  embarrass 
ingly  near  to  Aunt  Abbie,  who  herself  was 
reading  a  large  volume  bound  in  solemn 
leather. 

Abbie  Ann  looked  at  the  book  given  her 
which  had  a  strangely  familiar  red  and 
gold  binding,  somewhat  faded.  Its  name, 
yes,  its  name  was  "Sandford  and  Merton." 
Do  all  old  ladies  keep  "Sandford  and  Mer 
ton"  on  hand  for  little  girls? 

She  opened  the  book  listlessly,  at  any 
page  that  chanced  and  spelled  along 
for  a  time  concerning  a  little  boy  named 
Harry. 

"Besides  learning,  with  greatest  readi 
ness,  everything  that  was  taught  him,  lit 
tle  Harry" — so  said  the  book — "was  the 
most  honest,  obliging  .creature  in  the 


Abbie  Ann 

world.  He  was  never  discontented,  nor 
did  he  grumble,  whatever  he  was  desired 
to  do.  And  then  you  might  believe  Harry 
in  everything  he  said ;  for  though  he  could 
have  gained  a  plum  cake  by  telling  an  un 
truth,  and  was  sure  the  truth  would  ex 
pose  him  to  a  severe  whipping,  he  never 
hesitated  in  declaring  it.  Nor  was  he  like 
many  other  children  who  place  their  whole 
happiness  in  eating;  for  give  him  but  a 
morsel  of  dry  bread  for  his  dinner  and  he 
would  be  satisfied,  though  you  placed 
sweetmeats  and  fruit  and  every  other 
nicety  in  his — " 

Abbie  Ann,  fresh  from  the  memory  of 
that  frozen  pudding,  hunted  another  place, 
feeling  she  could  n't  stand  any  more  of 
Harry ;  we  prefer  to  meet  ordinary  people 
like  ourselves  along  the  way.  There  was 
another  boy  named  Tommy.  She  turned 
the  pages,  hunting  something  less  appall 
ing  than  the  virtues  of  Harry.  But  alas ! — 

"  'Dear  heart !'  said  Tommy,  'what  a 
1 88 


Abbie  Ann 

number  of  accidents  people  are  subject  to 
in  this  world !' 

"  'It  is  very  true/  "  answered  a  Mr. 
Barlow,  "  'but  as  that  is  the  case,  it  is  nec 
essary  to  improve  ourselves  in  every  man 
ner,  that  we  may  be  able  to  struggle 
against  them/ 

"  'That,'  "  said  Tommy,  on  that  page, 
or  some  other,  it  really  did  not  matter  to 
Abbie  Ann  which,  as  she  turned  them,"  'I 
perfectly  comprehend,'  " — which,  to  tell 
the  truth,  was  more  than  Abbie  felt  that 
she  did. 

She  had  had  enough  of  "Sandford  and 
Merton."  She  peeped  up  cautiously,  to 
meet,  however,  Aunt  Abbie's  grim  eye, 
and  returned  hastily  to  her  book,  too 
hastily  in  fact  to  know  that  Aunt  Abbie 
returned  to  hers  as  abruptly  and  with 
something  of  the  same  guilty  air  of  being 
caught.  For,  strangely  enough,  Aunt 
Abbie  had  not  been  reading  at  all,  but 
gazing  at  her  little  niece.  Shortly  after 
189 


Abbie  Ann 

she  arose  and  saying  something  about 
not  being  well,  went  up-stairs. 

Eliza  appeared  soon  after  to  escort  the 
guest  to  bed. 

It  seemed  hours  after  she  was  there, 
that  Abbie  Ann  opened  her  eyes.  It  was 
no  dream  this  time,  there  was  Aunt  Abbie, 
or— was  it?  With  the  fierceness  gone,  it 
was  an  old  woman,  whose  hand,  holding 
a  candle,  was  tremulous;  whose  nose  and 
chin,  in  silhouette  on  the  wall,  made  gro 
tesque  shadows — 

It  frightened  Abbie  worse  to  have  her 
tremble,  to  have  her  old,  than  to  have  her 
tall  and  stern  and  grim.  What  did  she 
want?  Why  did  n't  she  go?  Would  she 
never,  never  go?  Would  she  stand  there 
forever,  forever,  with  that  candle,  looking 
down — 

Abbie  Ann,  holding  her  little  self  rigid, 

felt  she  could  n't  stand  it  to  have  Aunt 

Abbie   know   that   she   was    awake,    she 

might  lean  over,  she  might  touch  her — 

190 


Abbie  Ann 

The  grim  old  Aunt  Abbies,  do  they  reckon 
on  these  costs  when  they  make  themselves 
feared  so? 

But  Aunt  Abbie  never  knew;  and  per 
haps  too,  little  Abbie  fell  asleep  without 
knowing  it,  for  when  she  woke  again,  only 
the  light  from  the  hall  was  in  the  room, 
and  Aunt  Abbie  with  her  candle  was  gone. 


191 


XIV 


ISS  HENRIETTA  OWS 
LEY  was  invited  for  the  next 
day  to  Sunday  dinner.  Aunt 
Abbie,  Aunt  Ann,  and  Abbie 
Ann  were  home  from  church  when  she 
arrived.  The  majestic  array  of  the  great- 
aunts  in  honor  of  Sunday  was  awing. 
Miss  Owsley  looked  briskly  handsome  and 
comely. 

Aunt  Abbie's  greeting  was  singular ;  on 
looking  up  and  seeing  the  other  in  the 
doorway,  she  said,  "Henrietta  Owsley,  I 
have  been  a  wicked  old  woman." 

Miss  Henrietta  Owsley  did  not  move 
an  eyelid  of  her  strong,  portly  face.  "I 
have  been  telling  you  so  for  some  years," 
she  said,  cheerfully  and  promptly. 

Aunt  Abbie  took  this  with  surprising 
192 


Abbie  Ann 

meekness.  "I  know  you  have/'  she  said 
with  alarming  humility,  "but  it  seems  that 
each  must  travel  his  own  road  to  repent 
ance.  There  are  no  short-cuts  by  way  of 
another's  experience." 

Abbie  Ann  felt  as  if  she  were  still  in 
church;  she  had  no  idea  what  it  was  all 
about,  but  then  that  made  it  the  more  like 
church  to  poor  Abbie. 

But,  promptly  enough,  Aunt  Abbie's 
every-day  manner  returned. 

"Henrietta,"  she  said  decidedly,  "you 
must  have  this  child's  trunk  packed  to 
morrow.  It  is  the  proper  thing  that  she 
should  come  to  live  with  us  while  here." 

Abbie  Ann  understood  this,  and  held 
her  breath  and  clutched  the  seat  of  the 
chair  she  was  on. 

"Not  at  all,"  returned  Miss  Henrietta 
Owsley,  who  was  just  as  decided.  "You 
forget  the  child  has  a  father.  She  was 
brought  to  me.  I  can  allow  no  change 
unless  ordered  by  him." 

193 


Abbie  Ann 

"H'm,"  said  Aunt  Abbie  Norris. 

"And  you  forget,"  went  on  the  relent 
less  Miss  Henrietta,  "that  though  you 
may  be  ready  to  forgive,  it  does  not  follow 
that  you  are  forgiven." 

Aunt  Abbie's  grim  face  changed  but  she 
held  her  own.  "Henrietta  Owsley,"  she 
said,  "you  are  the  only  person  on  earth 
who  would  dare  speak  to  me  in  that  way, 
you  know  you  are." 

"I  think  we  've  always  been  distin 
guished  for  plain  speaking  with  each 
other,  Abbie,"  said  Miss  Henrietta,  good- 
humoredly.  Then  she  laughed  and  went 
on :  "However,  I  Ve  never  seen  that  it  has 
done  either  of  us  much  good,  as  we  seem 
to  make  a  habit  of  never  taking  the  other's 
advice." 

"H'm,"  said  Aunt  Abbie  again,  and 
Aunt  Ann  coming  in,  she  lapsed  into  si 
lence,  which,  if  violent  tweakings  of  her 
great  nose  meant  anything,  was  filled  with 
inward  thoughts  of  a  disturbing  nature. 
194 


Abbie  Ann 

At  sundown  Miss  Henrietta  and  her 
youngest  pupil,  bag  in  hand,  went  home 
in  the  carriage. 

BUT  Abbie  Ann  was  not  to  be  left  to  her 
Maria  long.  School  was  not  over  the  next 
day,  when  Aunt  Ann  Norris  appeared, 
tearful  and  helpless. 

She  clung  to  the  little  niece,  who  was 
brought  down  by  Miss  Owsley,  as  to  some 
thing  of  her  own  flesh  and  blood,  but  she 
handed  a  note  to  Miss  Owsley. 

"Read  it,  dear  Henrietta,"  she  begged, 
her  bonnet  all  awry,  her  old  hands  tremu 
lous,  "read  it  and  tell  me  what  it  means ! 
I  went  down  town,  in  fact,  Henrietta,  I 
may  say,  Sister  Abbie  sent  me  down  in 
the  carriage  to  match  purple  floss,  and  on 
my  return, — read  it — " 

Miss  Owsley  took  the  proffered  note 
and  read  it  calmly. 

"Dear  Ann,"  it  set  forth,  "I  am  going  on  a 
journey.  Do  not  worry  about  me.  I  am  fully 

195 


Abbie  Ann 

able  to  look  after  myself,  but  have  taken 
Eliza  to  satisfy  you.  I  cannot  say  just  when  I 
shall  return.  «  Your  affectionate  sister, 

"A.  L.  NORRIS." 

"What  does  it  mean?"  begged  poor 
Miss  Ann. 

"It  means  what  it  says,"  responded  the 
practical  Miss  Henrietta. 

"And  what  am  I  to  do?"  quavered  the 
bewildered  and  forsaken  Miss  Ann. 

"Go  home  and  be  comfortable,"  said 
the  other.  "Your  sister  can  take  care  of 
herself." 

"Dear  Henrietta,  am  I  to  stay  in  that 
big  house  alone?"  And  the  poor  old  Miss 
Ann,  her  eye-glasses  dangling  on  their 
gold  chain,  had  hasty  recourse  to  her 
pocket  handkerchief.  "Sister  Abbie," 
wept  Miss  Ann,  "is  most  unkind ;  she  has 
no  right  to  treat  me  with  so  little  confi 
dence." 

Miss  Owsley  gazed  upon  her  lifelong 
friend,  Ann  Norris.  Was  it  fair  that  the 
196 


Abbie  Ann 

sister's  stronger  will  should  have  kept 
poor  Ann  dependent  thus  ?  But  born  pre 
ceptress  that  Miss  Henrietta  was,  it  was 
too  late  to  begin  on  Ann  now,  and  so,  with 
a  smile,  she  said: 

"You  may  take  Abbie  back  with  you,  if 
you  wish,  and  send  her  to  school  each 
morning." 

Abbie  Ann  accepted  this  willingly 
enough.  She  did  not  mind  going  with 
Aunt  Ann,  and  when  she  came  down 
ready  to  go,  a  little  later,  she  brought 
Maria,  that  Aunt  Ann  might  know  her. 
And  it  was  plain  to  be  seen  that  Aunt  Ann, 
even  in  her  tearful  state,  liked  the  pink- 
cheeked  Maria. 

So,  as  Aunt  Abbie  failed  to  return  that 
day,  or  the  next,  they  invited  Maria  to 
drive  with  them  in  the  afternoon  and  go 
home  with  them  to  dinner. 

When  they  went  for  her,  she  came  out 
in  her  best  dress  and  hat,  with  a  letter  in 
her  hand. 

197 


Abbie  Ann 

"It  's  from  my  auntie,"  she  told  Miss 
Ann,  her  cheeks  pinker  with  the  pleasure 
of  it,  "and  it 's  about  you." 

Miss  Ann's  nerves  were  none  of  the 
best.  "About  me?"  she  returned,  with 
alarm,  "oh,  Maria,  what  is  it?  I  am  quite 
prepared, — what  has  happened  to  Sister 
Abbie?" 

Maria  looked  astonished.  "It  's  about 
you,"  she  said.  "My  auntie  says  my 
grandma  is  glad  I  am  rooming  with  Ab 
bie  Ann.  She  says  that  Miss  Ann  Norris 
and  my  grandma's  brother,  Mr.  Chedson 
Dudley  Rowley,  were  old  friends." 

Aunt  Ann  sat  back  in  the  carriage. 
Surely  she  had  heard,  but  she  did  not 
say  a  word,  only  her  gloved  old  hands 
closed  on  her  lorgnette  quite  agitatedly 
and  she  looked  off  out  of  the  carriage 
window. 

Presently  her  gaze  came  in  to  the 
two  little  girls  side  by  side  on  the  seat  op 
posite  her.  They  looked  uncomfortable. 
198 


Miss  Ann  drew  herself  up" 


Abbie  Ann 

What  had  Maria  said,  what  had  she 
done? 

Miss  Ann  Norris  smoothed  her  dress 
in  a  fluttered,  timid  way  with  her  old 
hand.  "Your  Aunt  Abbie,  Abbie  Ann," 
she  then  remarked,  as  she  had  once  before, 
"is  a  strong  character;  a  person  of  great 
discretion  and*  reserve.  In  this  latter,  my 
dears,  I  hope  I  resemble  her." 

And  Miss  Ann  drew  herself  up  and 
looked  from  one  small  face  to  the  other, 
wistfully.  Was  she  only  waiting  for  a  lit 
tle  encouragement,  to  open  her  old  heart 
to  these  two  little  girls? 

But  they  did  not  know  what  to  say ;  em 
barrassed,  each  held  the  other's  hand  and 
said  nothing  and  on  Miss  Ann  Norris's 
face  a  look  wistful  and  troubled  lingered 
all  the  way  home. 

She  even  forgot  at  dinner  to  worry,  and 
talked  a  good  deal  of  the  time  when  she 
and  Sister  Abbie  were  young.  Abbie  and 
Maria  also  gathered  from  her,  that  Aunt 

2OI 


Abbie  Ann 

Ann  and  Aunt  Abbie  once  were  girls,  and 
tripped  about  the  shady  streets  neighbor 
ing  this  very  house,  with  other  pretty 
girls,  all  in  short-waisted,  scant-skirted 
hand-embroidered  muslins,  their  slipper 
elastics  crossed  upon  their  pretty  ankles, 
their  faces  looking  out  from  big  scoop 
Leghorn  bonnets  tied  with  bows  under 
their  pretty  chins.  And  the  poke  of  Aunt 
Ann's  favorite  Leghorn,  they  learned,  was 
filled  in  around  her  little  pink  face  with 
rosebuds  in  close  profusion. 

After  dinner  old  Miss  Ann,  far  along  in 
her  seventies,  went  to  the  piano.  She 
seemed  to  forget  her  little  niece  and 
Maria. 

Her  playing  was  hesitating  and  low  as 
if  the  old  fingers  were  hunting  their  way, 
but  it  made  little  Abbie  Ann  and  Maria 
seek  each  other's  hands  again,— they  knew 
not  why. 

And  presently  Aunt  Ann's  old  voice 
trembled  above  the  gliding  runs  and  mel- 
202 


Abbie  Ann 

ody  and  there  was  something  left  in  the  old 
tones  still.  It  was  years  after  that  Abbie 
Ann  came  upon  and  remembered  the 
words  Aunt  Ann  Norris  sang  quaver- 
ingly: 

"No,  the  heart  that  has  truly  loved  never  for 
gets 

But  as  truly  loves  on  to  the  close, 
As  the  sunflower  turns  on  her  god  when  he 

sets 

The  same  look  which  she  turned  when  he 
rose." 

When  Aunt  Ann  turned  from  the  piano, 
she  was  just  an  old,  old  woman,  older  be 
cause  of  the  fineries  which  bedecked  her. 
She  called  Maria  to  her. 

"Your  Uncle  Chedson,"  said  Miss  Ann 
to  Maria,  "died  when  we  both  were 
twenty." 

Soon  after  Maria  had  to  be  sent  home 

in  the  carriage,  but  the  next  afternoon 

they  went  for  her  again.    Aunt  Ann  even 

held  Maria's  hand.    It  was  plain  to  be  seen 

11  203 


Abbie  Ann 

that  she  loved  Maria.  At  first  Abbie  Ann 
felt  queer,  but  she  could  not  be  jealous 
very  long,  for  the  very  reason  that  she 
loved  Maria  too. 


204 


Aunt  Ann  playing  the  piano 


XV 


BBIE,  during  this  stay  with 
her  Aunt  Ann,  began  to  un 
derstand  why  elderly  ladies 
offered  a  book  called  "Sand- 
ford  and  Merton"  to  their  young  friends 
for  reading  purposes.  Old  ladies  had 
known  in  the  flesh  such  little  boys  as  these! 
She  made  the  discovery  in  this  way. 
The  second  day  Miss  Henrietta  agreed  that 
Maria  again  might  drive  with  them,  and 
again  go  home  with  them  to  dinner,  but 
Maria  herself  explained  that  to  do  so  she 
would  have  to  take  her  books  along  and 
in  the  hour  between  the  drive  and  dinner, 
prepare  her  lessons. 

"I  '11  do  mine  then  too,"  agreed  Abbie, 
and  it  was  so  settled. 

The  thing  which  seemed  to  be  oppress- 
207 


Abbie  Ann 

ing  the  conscientious  Maria,  when  the 
hour  came,  was  the  composition  hanging 
over  her  head.  Abbie  had  one  too,  on 
"The  Beaver,"  whereas  the  older  Maria 
lamented  over  the  more  abstract  proposi 
tion  of  "Spring."  Abbie  Ann  tried  to 
cheer  her  up  about  it. 

"It  is  harder  for  me  than  it  is  for  Ab 
bie,"  Maria  told  Miss  Ann,  in  her  prettily 
anxious  way.  Maria  was  a  little  lady, 
every  inch  of  her.  "I  like  to  sew  and  to 
straighten  around  our  room  and  such 
things,  but  I  don't  seem  to  know  how  to 
write  a  composition." 

Abbie  Ann's  concern  was  over  another 
part  of  it.  "I  can  write  'em  easy  enough," 
she  claimed,  "if  I  just  did  n't  have  to  spell 
'em." 

"I  have  always  found  the  pen  to  be  a 
task,  myself,"  confessed  truthful  Aunt 
Ann,  "though  we  have  not  been  without 
talent  in  the  family  that  way.  Your  Aunt 
Abbie,  Abbie  Ann,  wields  a  fluent  pen 
208 


Abbie  Ann 

when  she  has  a  mind  to,  and  our  brother 
Joseph, — you  have  heard  of  your  Uncle 
Joseph,  Abbie  Ann?" 

"No,  ma'am,"  from  that  person,  apolo 
getically. 

Aunt  Ann  looked  her  concern.  "Dear, 
dear,  it  is  unbelievable  you  should  not 
have  heard  of  your  Uncle  Joseph.  Had 
he  lived  to  maturity  we  have  always  felt 
he  would  have  brought  great  honor,  even 
renown,  to  the  family.  Our  brother 
Charles  was  your  grandfather,  Abbie 
Ann,  but  Joseph  died  young,  the  victim,  I 
have  always  felt,  of  his  own  precocity. 
But  you  shall  see  what  we  have  preserved 
of  Joseph's ;  wait  until  I  ring  for  Emma," 
— Emma  was  the  second  maid, — "though 
whether  she  will  know  how  to  get  what  I 
want  like  Eliza  would,  I  am  not  sure." 

"It  is  a  small  leather  trunk,"  Aunt  Ann 
explained  to  Emma  when  she  appeared, 
"and  it  is  in  the  closet  between  Sister  Ab- 
bie's  and  my  room,  back  on  the  shelf." 
209 


Abbie  Ann 

This  seemed  an  odd  place  for  a  trunk  to 
Maria  and  Abbie  Ann!  And,  moreover, 
Emma  seemed  a  slight,  if  willing  young 
body,  to  fetch  such  a  thing  alone. 

"Our  mother  laid  everything  of  our 
brother  Joseph's  away  in  the  trunk  which 
had  been  hers  as  a  bride,"  said  old  Miss 
Ann  to  the  two  little  listeners,  "and  Sister 
Abbie  and  I  have  rarely  disturbed  them. 
This  is  it,"  as  Emma  returned,  "the  trunk, 
I  mean,  my  dears,  and  you  both  may  look 
over  it  together." 

It  was  about  two  feet  long  by  perhaps 
one  and  a  half  the  other  way,  and  of 
leather,  nail-studded.  Abbie  and  Maria 
felt  they  would  have  called  it  a  box.  But 
no,  within  its  wall-paper  lined  top,  on  a 
small  pasted  label,  one  read  a  direct  state 
ment: 

"i  Family  Trunk. 

"John  Felix,  Trunk  Maker— 27  Arch  Street 
"1790." 

Judged  by  the  contents  of  the  trunk, 
Joseph  had  been  prolific.     The  two  little 
210 


Abbie  Ann 

girls  were  overawed.  There  were  layers 
of  copy-books,  bearing  Joseph's  name,  be 
ginning  with  those  filled  with  what  Aunt 
Ann  called  pothooks,  succeeded  by 
stratas  of  thin  paper-backed  books  bear 
ing  the  explanation  "Compositions." 

The  little  girls  opened  one  of  these  but 
without  enthusiasm.  They  had  a  sudden 
prejudice  against  this  all  too  perfect 
Joseph.  For  Abbie  Ann's  part,  she  knew 
that  of  all  the  family,  so  far,  she  preferred 
Aunt  Ann ! 

They  gazed  at  Joseph's  perfect  chirog- 
raphy  with  coldness!  Moreover,  on  the 
opening  page,  within  an  enwreathing  bor 
der  of  colored  flowers  encircling  a  scroll 
decoration,  he  had  written: 

"Learning  is  the  ornament  of  youth  and  the 
comfort  of  age. 

"Vanity  and  presumption  ruin  many  a  prom 
ising  youth. 

"Written  by  Joseph  Norris, 6th  moth,  nth, 

1817. 
"Select  School." 

211 


Abbie  Ann 

Worse  still,  on  the  next  page,  behold,  was 
what  Joseph  called  in  an  embellished  head 
line  a 

"PREFACE" 

It  read  thus : 

"The  reader  must  excuse  these  pieces  as  they 
are  made  when  I  am  a  boy  of  but  1 1  years  old. 
My  master  told  me  that  at  some  future  day  I 
might  see  the  advantage  of  having  been  put  to 
writing  compositions  whilst  a  school  boy; 
therefore  I  have  composed  a  piece  every  sev 
enth  day." 

Maria  read  this  aloud,  then  passed  the 
book  for  the  next  page  to  Abbie  Ann. 

"It  's  poetry,"  she  said,  having  exam 
ined  it;  "you  read  it." 

"No,  you,"  said  Abbie,  hastily. 

"It  's  your  uncle,"  avowed  Maria. 

Abbie  Ann  took  the  book  filled  with 
the  neat  chirography  and  read  with  reluc 
tance.  Joseph  made  her  feel  small,  and 
effaced  and  cross.  She  did  n't  like  this 
212 


Abbie  Ann 

newly  discovered  relative  at  all,  and  her 
reading  showed  it  as  she  announced : 

"THE  BEGGAR  MAN 

"There  is  a  man  both  blind  and  poor, 
Who  begs  a  dinner  at  your  door, 
He  of  his  wife  was  soon  bereft 
And  also  without  children  left; 
He  knows  not  where  to  lay  his  head 
For  he  has  got  no  downy  bed; 
Then  do  not  send  him  from  your  door 
For  he  is  old,  and  very  poor." 

"Pooh,"  said  Abbie,  "that  way  of  doing 
'em  is  easier  than  real  compositions.  I 
could  do  that,  could  n't  you,  Maria  ?" 

Maria  was  doubtful,  but  Aunt  Ann  took 
it  literally.  Her  eye-glasses  fell  off  and 
dangled  on  their  chain,  and  she  grew  quite 
ambitious  that  they  should  try,  especially 
Abbie  Ann. 

"Think  of  the  gratification  to  your  Aunt 
Abbie  and  to  me,  if  we  could  think  the 
mantle  of  our  brother  Joseph  had  fallen 
upon  you,  Abbie  Ann." 
213 


Abbie  Ann 

That  person  looked  as  if  she  wished  she 
had  not  claimed  too  much,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  generation  she  belonged  to,  it 
would  not  do  to  back  down  now. 

"I  '11  do  one  and  show  you,"  she  told 
Aunt  Ann,  grandly,  "and  I  '11  send  it  to 
Mr.  McEwan  afterward.  He  '11  be  pleased 
to  see  I  can !  I  '11  do  it  now." 

And  abandoning  Joseph,  Abbie  flew  to 
get  pad  and  pencil. 

"There  is  another  poem  of  our  young 
brother's,  called  'The  Market  Day/  "  old 
Miss  Ann  told  Maria,  "which  we  of  his 
family  always  esteemed  highly.  You 
might  read  it  aloud,  while  Abbie  Ann 
makes  ready." 

But  Abbie  Ann  was  ready — there  was 
nothing  leisurely  in  her  generation — and 
she  listened  to  any  more  of  Joseph  reluc 
tantly.  Yet  before  it  was  over,  she  liked 
him  better,  and  so,  one  could  see,  did 
Maria  who  read  to  them : 

214 


Abbie  Ann 

"THE  MARKET  DAY 

"Now  the  people  come  to  town 
Some  from  up  and  some  from  down. 
Some  bring  meat  and  others  honey 
All  to  get  a  little  money. 
They  also  bring  both  corn  and  wheat 
To  buy  some  stockings  for  their  feet; 
Some  raise  rhy — " 

("What?"  for  Abbie  Ann  was  looking 
over  Maria's  shoulder,  "Joseph  was  hu 
man  then,  after  all  ?  Nice,  altogether  dif 
ferent  Joseph!") 

"Some  raise  rhy  and  others  flax 
To  make  them  linen  for  their  backs." 

Seeing  that  Joseph  the  paragon  was 
weak  in  spelling,  Abbie  wondered  if,  after 
all,  she  was  indeed  to  prove  a  Joseph 
to  the  family?  At  any  rate,  feeling  re 
lieved  about  her  own  failing  that  way  she 
seized  her  paper  and  retired. 

"You  talk,"  she  told  the  others. 

They  talked.  Maria  was  sorry  that 
Joseph  died. 

215 


Abbie  Ann 

Miss  Ann  told  her  about  it.  "He  died 
at  twelve,"  she  stated;  "and,  I  have  al 
ways  felt,  of  his  own  precocity,  though, 
more  directly  speaking,  they  attributed  it 
to  unripe  gooseberries.  They  grew  in  a 
row,  the  bushes,  I  mean,  in  his  master's 
back  yard.  He  was  a  person  full  of  liveli 
ness  and  spirits  too,  was  Joseph,"  testi 
fied  dear  Miss  Ann,  "as  you  will  see,  my 
dear,  if  you  will  turn  to  that  poem  called 
'Snow.'  But  perhaps  we  disturb  dear 
Abbie?" 

But  she  did  not  hear  them.-  She  was 
chewing  her  pencil-end  and  gazing  at  that 
page  in  her  geography  bearing  cut  and 
text  under  title  of  "The  Beaver." 

So  Maria  read: 


"SNOW 

'Now  the  flakes  are  falling 
And  the  leaves  around  us  lay, 

Now  the  boys  for  fire  are  calling 
Because  they  in  the  snow  do  play. 

216 


Abbie  Ann 

"See,  they  kick  the  snow  about 
And  throw  at  one  another, 
And  when  one  party  's  put  to  rout 
It  turns  to  chase  the  other. 

"When  some  are  wet  and  most  are  hurt 

In  school  they  take  their  places, 

And  there  they  worry,  tiese  and  fret, 

And  make  their  crooked  faces." 

(Dear,  rapidly  becoming  adorable,  little 
Joseph!) 

"It  also  was  his  part,"  said  Miss  Ann, 
"to  attend  our  mother  to  service  and 
carry  her  large  prayer-book  to  and  fro  for 
her  on  the  way.  There  were  certain  boys 
of  the  street  who  jeered  him  as  he  did 
so.  And  Joseph  was  a  lad  of  spirit,  my 
dear.  Letting  them  gain  courage  by  his 
lack  of  notice  of  them,  and  approach  from 
behind  quite  close,  suddenly  he  drew  forth 
his  pocket  handkerchief,  spread  it  on  a 
convenient  horse-block,  laid  his  mother's 
prayer-book  carefully  thereon,  and  then 
advanced  on  the  jeering  street  boys  to  such 
217 


Abbie  Ann 

purpose  they  never  again  molested  him, 
the  while  his  mother,  a  person  of  spirit 
also,  stood  and  awaited  him.  This  done, 
Joseph  rejoined  our  parent,  resumed  the 
prayer-book  and  they  went  on.  I  may  say, 
with  no  feeling  but  rejoicing  now  that  it 
was  so,"  said  dear  Miss  Ann,  "that  Joseph, 
of  us  all,  was  our  mother's  favorite 
child." 

Abbie  Ann  was  approaching.  "It  comes 
easy  enough  in  your  mind,"  she  told  them ; 
"it  is  n't  that!  It  's  the  getting  it  down 
out  of  your  mind  that  is  hard.  You  try 
and  you  '11  see,  Maria." 

But  Maria  shook  her  head  knowing  her 
limitations,  but  she  and  Miss  Ann  both  held 
out  their  loyal  hands  for  Abbie's  efforts. 
On  a  somewhat  smeared  and  a  considerably 
erased  and  interlined  paper,  what  they 
read  was  this : 

"THE  BEAVER 
"The  beaver  is  like  a  rat, 
It  swims,  and  its  tail  is  flat. 

218 


Maria,  Abbie  and  Aunt  Ann  looking  at  the  contents 
of  the  old  leather  trunk 


Abbie  Ann 

Its  teeth  are  very  strong  indeede 

To  saw  trees. 
It  also  is  noted  for  damms. 

"Its  ears  are  short  and  the  beaver  is  black 
And  it  makes  men's  hats ; 
They  are  found  in  Europes,  north  hemisphere 
And  are  useful  in  our  arts. 

"ABBIE  ANN  RICHARDSON,     nth  Mo. 

"Seleckt  School." 

Dear  Miss  Ann  wept  into  her  pocket 
handkerchief,  and  Maria's  cheeks,  too, 
were  pink  with  honest  admiration  of  her 
friend. 

Then  Aunt  Ann  grew  anxious  and 
reproached  herself  for  having  inspired 
her  great-niece  to  this  thing. 

"We  '11  lay  it  away  until  your  father 
shall  see  it,"  she  told  Abbie,  "and  then, 
with  the  example  of  Joseph  before  us,  let 
him  say  whether  you  shall  be  encouraged 
to  continue  in  the  matter." 

"She  will  have  to  hand  it  in  as  a  compo 
sition,  first,"  explained  Maria. 

221 


Abbie  Ann 

"To  be  sure,"  said  Aunt  Ann,  who  had 
forgotten. 

But  Miss  Ingram  was  less  enthusiastic 
about  it  than  dear  Miss  Ann.  In  fact 
what  little  she  said  was  laconic. 

"Copy  it  out  in  plain  English  and  cor 
rect  your  facts  and  spelling,"  was  that  per 
son's  comment  to  Abbie  Ann. 


222 


XVI 

T  was  the  evening  of  the  next 
day.  Aunt  Ann  and  Abbie 
had  gone  up-stairs,  more  be 
cause  the  autocratic  Jennings 
began  turning  the  lights  out  than  because 
it  was  late. 

All  the  evening  Aunt  Ann's  conversa 
tion  had  seemed  to  take  a  gloomy  turn  as 
if  her  mind  were  on  Aunt  Abbie.  "There 
are  tragedies  in  every  family,  my  dear," 
she  told  her  niece;  "we  had  an  uncle  our 
selves  whose  ship  was  scuttled  by  pirates." 
Abbie  Ann,  preparing  for  bed,  paused 
in  unbuttoning  her  shoe.  Evidently  some 
thing  direful  had  happened  to  the  uncle. 
"What  's  'scuttled,'  Aunt  Ann?"  she  in 
quired. 

"Dear  me,"  said  Aunt  Ann,  smoothing 

223 


Abbie  Ann 

her  dress,  "really,  Abbie  Ann,  I  don't 
know  that  I  can  exactly  tell  you.  Sister 
Abbie  would  know.  I  should  say  myself 
it  was  a  nautical  way  of  sinking  a  vessel 
peculiar  to  pirates." 

Abbie  Ann  pulled  her  shoe  off. 
"What  's  'pirates/  Aunt  Ann?" 

That  soul  was  quite  fluttered.  "Pirates, 
my  dear, — "  but  she  never  got  farther 
than  to  say  she  had  heard  they  generally 
wore  ear-rings,  when  both  paused — 

They  heard  the  front  door  opening,  then 
heard  voices. 

Abbie  Ann's  ears  were  sharp,  and  with 
one  shoe  on,  the  other  in  her  hand,  she 
flew  down-stairs,  Aunt  Ann  coming  be 
hind,  quite  tottery  from  her  week's  anxie 
ties. 

"Father!  Father!  Father!"  Abbie  Ann 
went  calling. 

And  it  was  her  father  and  Eliza  put 
ting  Aunt  Abbie  down  into  a  chair  very 
gently. 

224 


"  Abbie  Ann  rushed,  frantic  with  joy,  to  her  father" 


Abbie  Ann 

Abbie  Ann  rushed  to  her  father,  but 
Aunt  Ann  tearfully  approached  her  sister. 

"Now  what  is  the  use  of  any  heroics, 
Ann?"  Aunt  Abbie,  alarmingly  erect, 
briefly  demanded.  "There,  keep  away, 
no,  I  prefer  you  would  n't  touch  me,  even 
a  finger  tip.  It  's  lumbago." 

Poor  Miss  Ann,  thus  waved  off,  took 
Mr.  Richardson's  proffered  hand  meekly. 

"I  went  to  ask  John  Richardson's  par 
don,"  announced  Aunt  Abbie  at  this  point, 
"and  I  took  cold  in  his  drafty  house  and 
he  had  to  bring  me  home." 

And  Aunt  Abbie  made  a  motion  as 
though  to  rise,  and  sank  back. 

"If  he  had  not  been  an  amiable  man,  he 
might  have  told  me  these  were  long-de 
ferred  tweaks  of  conscience,"  said  Aunt 
Abbie  with  grim  humor;  "but  it  is  n't 
that;  it  's  his  drafty  halls  and  that  Fabe 
creature's  cooking."  But  she  was  quite 
white  about  the  lips  nevertheless. 

John  Richardson,  this  time  not  at  all 
227 


Abbie  Ann 

like  the  man  with  the  dripping  umbrella, 
set  his  little  half-shod  daughter  down,  and 
detached  himself  from  Miss  Ann. 

"Get  a  glass  of  wine  for  Miss  Norris, 
Eliza,"  he  said. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Aunt  Abbie,  decid 
edly,  "that  's  the  last  thing  one  needs  in 
rheumatic  tendencies." 

"Get  a  glass  of  wine,  "Eliza."  said  John 
Richardson.  "Please  bring  it  immedi 
ately." 

Eliza  disappeared,  hat  and  wraps  yet 
on,  but  she  came  back  with  the  wine. 

"You  need  it.  You  are  faint,"  said 
John  Richardson,  and  held  it  to  her  lips. 
Aunt  Abbie  sat  straight.  She  had  no  idea 
of  drinking  it.  John  Richardson  held  the 
wine,  and  looked  at  her.  Suddenly  Aunt 
Abbie  opened  her  mouth  and  swallowed 
it  meekly. 

Then  her  eye  fell  on  Abbie  Ann,  dan 
gling  one  shoe,  and  looking  on  wonder- 
ingly. 

228 


Abbie  Ann 

"Child,"  she  said,  "come  to  me." 

The  niece  went.  Aunt  Abbie's  eyes 
ranged  from  the  one-stockinged  foot  up 
to  the  tumbled  hair. 

'Abbie  Ann,"  she  said,  almost  gently, 
certainly  with  surprising  meekness,  "I  was 
such  a  child  as  you  once.  John,  if  you  '11 
give  me  your  arm  to  the  top  of  the  stairs, 
I '11  go  to  bed."  Later,  Abbie's  father  came 
down  again,  and  took  his  little  daughter 
on  his  knee.  He  had  brought  more  than 
himself  for  her,  he  had  a  letter  in  his 
pocket  from  Mr.  McEwan  which  she  joy 
ously  proceeded  to  read. 

"There  's  a  verse,"  she  announced;  "it 
says,  'Lines  to  Miss  Abbie  Ann  Richard 
son  on  First  Beholding  Her  Great- 
Aunt/  " 

Her  father  looked  doubtful,  perhaps 
apprehensive  too.  It  is  only  fair  to  this 
gentleman  to  say  he  did  not  know  the  lines 
were  there  when  he  brought  the  letter. 

But  Abbie  was  reading  them: 
229 


Abbie  Ann 

"Shake  not  your  glory  locks  at  me 
That  in  the  great-aunt  I  should  see 
The  why  that  little  Abbie  Ann 
•   So  loves  a  feather  or  a  fan, 
And  why  the  little  Abbie's  head 
And  temper  too,  should  blaze  so . ..." 

Abbie  stopped  suddenly.  Her  face  was 
scarlet ;  so  was  her  father's,  but  for  a  dif 
ferent  reason.  It  never  would  have  done 
to  let  his  little  daughter  know,  when  she 
stopped  reading,  how  near  he  came  to  sup 
plying  that  rhyme. 

"Abbie,"  he  said,  presently,  "your  Aunt 
Abbie  is  desirous  that  you  should  make 
your  home  here  with  her  while  going  to 
school.  I  have  told  her  that  for  this  year 
I  want  you  where  you  are.  After  that,  I 
have  promised  to  leave  it  to  you,  whether 
you  shall  stay  here  or  not." 

Abbie  Ann  listened.  She  even  took  it 
quite  cheerfully.  "Anyhow,  that 's  a  long 
way  off,"  she  reasoned. 

230 


XVII 

OAL  CITY  is  in  the  heart  of 
very  beautiful  mountains.  In 
the  summer-time,  a  wild  little 
river  dashes  over  giant  boul 
ders  and  churns  itself  to  foam  under  rocky, 
laurel-  and  rhododendron-grown  banks. 
The  country  is  full  of  summer  hotels  and 
mineral  springs. 

One  day  in  June  a  freight  consignment 
was  put  off  on  the  platform  of  Coal  City. 
It  seemed  to  consist  of  household  comforts, 
screens  as  for  drafty  halls,  footstools,  care 
fully  wrapped  mattresses. 

A  day  later,  the  westward  bound  morn 
ing  sleeper  drew  up  at  Coal  City.  Mr. 
McEwan,  station-agent,  ahead  even  of 
Mr.  John  Richardson,  owner  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Mines,  received  into  his  own 
231 


Abbie  Ann 

hands,  the  party  handed  off,  one  after  an 
other  by  the  conductor;  a  party  consisting 
of  an  old  lady,  a  nodding  bunch  of  mig 
nonette  in  her  bonnet,  one  maid,  laden 
with  bags  and  bundles  and  wearing  the 
tolerant  air  of  one  conducting  and  humor 
ing  a  consignment  of  irresponsibles,  one 
little  girl  with  pink,  pink  cheeks  and  a  trim 
little  person,  and  another  little  girl  with 
eager  eyes  and  red,  red  hair- 
Aunt  Ann  and  Maria  had  come  to  Coal 
City  to  pay  a  visit  to  Abbie  Ann,  and  Eliza 
had  come  to  look  after  the  party. 

Aunt  Abbie  had  declined  the  invitation, 
hastily;  she  did  not  seem  to  care  for  the 
mode  of  life  at  Coal  City;  and  Miss  Henri 
etta  had  declined  likewise,  agreeing  how 
ever,  to  go  and  stay  with  her  old  friend 
Miss  Abbie,  while  Aunt  Ann  went. 

'  We  have  n't  a  bit  of  patience  with  each 
other's  ways,"  stated  Miss  Owsley,  "but 
it  will  be  good  discipline  for  us  both." 
Mr.  McEwan,  receiving  the  party  from 
232 


Abbie  Ann 

the  conductor,  handed  them  on  to  Mr. 
Richardson,  which  brought  him  to  Abbie 
Ann  last. 

As  he  lifted  her  off  the  step  and  set  her 
on  the  platform,  he  surveyed  her  up  and 
down.  Now  it  chanced  she  had  on  a  blue 
linen  dress,  and  a  flapping-brimmed,  dark 
blue  hat  with  flowers.  Mr.  McEwan  sur 
veyed  her  up  and  down.  Then  his  eye 
brows  lifted  and  his  glasses  blinked  and  he 
shook  hands. 

"Blue,"  said  Mr.  McEwan,  "is  true." 

She  looked  up  and  because  of  the  sun 
blinked  too. 

"I  have  been  true/'  said  Abbie. 


233 


XVIII 

R.  McEWAN  called  Eliza  a 
zealous  female,  and  contended 
that  the  unholy  light  of  the 
crusader  against  disorder 
burned  in  her  eye.  He  was  on  the  porch 
sitting  on  an  inverted  clothes-basket  for 
lack  of  any  better  article  to  sit  on,  when  he 
said  it. 

Eliza  after  a  day's  sojourn  at  Coal 
City  had  gone  to  Mr.  Richardson  for  con 
sultation.  Her  manner  toward  her 
charges  still  had  that  tolerant  air  one  ac 
cords  to  irresponsibles,  only  that  now  she 
included  among  these  incompetents,  Fabe, 
and  also  Aunt  Venus,  who  had  come  up 
from  Hinton  for  the  summer  as  assistant, 
and  in  a  way,  Mr.  Richardson  and  Mr. 
McEwan  too. 

234 


Abbie  Ann 

She  went,  however,  for  consultation  to 
Mr.  Richardson. 

"If  Miss  Ann  is  to  be  looked  after 
and  made  comfortable,"  she  announced 
"I  '11  have  to  have  permission  to  take 
hold." 

Now  Mr.  Richardson  had  been  doubt 
ful  about  the  advisability  of  that  dear  old 
person  coming  anyway. 

"Then,  for  prudence'  sake,"  he  adjured 
Eliza,  since  Miss  Ann  was  here,  "take 
hold." 

And  this  she  proceeded  to  do.  "Tak 
ing  hold,"  moreover,  is  a  strenuous  pro 
ceeding  as  interpreted  by  an  Eliza  and  is 
apparently  both  volcanic  and  disruptive 
in  its  nature.  For  instance,  everything 
portable  and  movable  in  a  house  at  such 
times  seems  to  go  galvanically  out  at  win 
dows  and  doors.  The  proceeding  also 
includes  brooms  and  scrubbing  brushes,  a 
cold  and  comfortless  mid-day  lunch,  and 
it  drives  the  other  humans  of  a  household 

235 


Abbie  Ann 

forth  to  the  porches  for  refuge,  since,  in 
this  case,  showers  prevented  removal  of 
themselves  further  afield. 

Rugs,  curtains,  and  other  temporarily 
superfluous  furnishings  had  been  moved 
to  the  porches  too.  Maria  sat  on  a  fender, 
for  want  of -any  other  unoccupied  article 
to  hold  her,  and  Abbie  Ann  sat  on  a 
bucket.  Maria's  mama  had  sent  the  two 
little  girls,  from  a  post  in  the  far,  far 
Southwest,  a  pair  each  of  elaborately 
beaded  Indian  moccasins  which  had  just 
come  by  mail  and  which  they  were  each 
holding  for  want  of  any  safe  place  to  lay 
them  down. 

Mr.  McEwan  arriving  just  here,  turned 
a  clothes-basket  over,  tried  it  carefully, 
and  took  a  seat  thereon. 

"It  is  the  way  Sister  Abbie  and  the  ser 
vants  have  done  me,  all  my  life  at  home," 
said  poor  Miss  Ann  from  her  position  in 
an  armchair  wedged  against  a  hat-rack,, 
with  her  old  feet  on  a  dictionary.  "And 
236 


Abbie  Ann 

even  when  I  get  way  off  here,  John  goes 
and  gives  Eliza  permission !" 

"She  says  she  found  the  pepper-box  in 
the  refrigerator,  and  the  corn  meal  in  the 
soup-tureen,"  reported  Abbie;  "and  if 
there  were  n't  women  to  take  proper  care 
of  the  men  and  children,  Eliza  says  what 
would  the  world  come  to?" 

The  clothes-basket  giving  forth  threat 
ening  sounds  of  imminent  collapse,  Mr. 
McEwan  arose  and  sought  the  porch-rail, 
damp  as  it  was  from  the  recent  shower. 
He  ridged  his  brows  too,  so  that  it  lifted 
his  hair,  and  he  blinked  through  his  glasses 
and  replied. 

"Come  to?"  retorted  Mr.  McEwan. 
"Why,"  with  conviction  in  his  tone,  "why, 
without  the  Elizas  we  would  lapse  right 
back  into  the  Golden  Age,  and  sit  on  flow 
ery  banks  and  shut  our  eyes  to  the  weeds 
gradually  crowding  'em  out,  and  eat  ber 
ries  out  of  burdock  leaves,  and  toss  ripe 
grapes  across  into  each  other's  mouths, 

237 


Abbie  Ann 

and  chant  chansons  to  the  sun  and  can 
zonets  to  the  moon  and — " 

"But  who  would  weed  the  flowery 
banks  ?"  queried  Abbie,  worried  that  these 
might  disappear,  since  he  himself  had 
suggested  it. 

Mr.  McEwan  looked  at  her  with  in 
credulous  amaze,  and  then  shook  his 
head  sadly.  Who  could  have  believed,  he 
remarked,  that  in  their  own  Abbie  they  'd 
ever  come  to  see  a  juvenile  Eliza  undevel 
oped!  "These  things  grow  on  one,  too/' 
he  lamented  anxiously.  "The  Elizas  in 
time  come  to  make  pepper-pot  mole-hills 
into  mountains,  with  whole  ranges  of  the 
real  thing  in  mountains  immediately  out 
side.  Besides,"  suggested  Mr.  McEwan, 
triumphantly,  "if  the  pepper-pot  habitually 
stays  in  the  ice-box,  would  not  one  always 
know  where  to  find  it?  What  the  Elizas 
need,"  declared  Mr.  McEwan,  "is  a 
broader  view.  I  will  get  Mooney  from  the 
Junction  to  come  up  and  spell  me  at  the 
238 


Abbie  Ann 

office  for  a  day,  and  we  will  get  Fabe  and 
a  two-horse  wagon  and  take  our  Abbie 
here  and  Eliza  up  to  the  top  of  old  Sugar 
Loaf  Mountain  and  let  them  get  it." 

He  meant  a  broader  view. 

And  while  Mr.  McEwan  might  be  jok 
ing  about  the  one  part  of  it,  he  was  not 
about  the  Sugar  Loaf  side  of  it. 

Eliza  however,  on  being  consulted  about 
it  later,  demurred.  For  herself  she  did 
not  want  to  go  and  preferred  to  get  the 
house  in  order  according  to  her  notions 
of  order,  and  as  for  Miss  Ann,  Eliza  said 
she  was  not  used  to  such  undertakings 
and  it  would  be  the  death  of  her ! 

But  Miss  Ann  was  decided.  "I  Ve  sat 
on  hotel  porches  at  summer  places  all  my 
life,"  she  declared,  "and  watched  every 
body  else  go  on  the  expeditions  and  excur 
sions  because  Sister  Abbie  would  not  let 
me  undertake  them.  I  am  going,  Eliza." 

And  when  the  day  came,  Miss  Ann 
went,  sitting  in  an  arm-chair  installed  in 

239 


Abbie  Ann 

place  of  the  wagon's  center  cross-seat,  the 
same  chair  having  been  lashed  into  secur 
ity  by  Fabe  and  Mr.  McEwan.  Moreover, 
the  only  concession  she  would  make  to 
Eliza  was  in  the  carrying  of  a  sunshade 
and  the  wearing  of  a  large  green  veil, 
which  she  threw  back  with  determination 
once  they  were  beyond  the  eye  of  that 
person. 

Fabe  and  Mr.  McEwan  sat  on  the  front 
seat  and  drove,  and  Maria  and  Abbie  sat 
together  on  the  rear  one.  When  they  were 
two  thirds  of  the  way  up  Sugar  Loaf,  who 
came  driving  up  behind  them  in  the  buck- 
board  but  father,  who  had  found  he  could 
get  off,  after  all ! 

The  broad  view  had  begun  some  while 
before,  during  the  first  stages  of  the  wind 
ing  ascent  of  Sugar  Loaf,  but  now  it  was 
all  one  could  ask  for  breadth.  These 
long  lines,  one  behind  another,  of  moun 
tains  holding  hands  and  stretching  north 
and  south,  were  the  Alleghanies,  but  the 
240 


Abbie  Ann 

fainter  azure  ones  so  far  away  that  they 
melted  into  the  sky,  were  the  Blue  Ridge 
ranges. 

At  one's  feet  was  home  in  the  valley  be 
low,  with  Eliza  sorting  kitchen-tins  from 
Fabe's  providential  reserve  of  empty  to 
mato-cans  he  had  stored  away.  Now  Ab 
bie  Ann's  father  considered  Eliza  invalu 
able.  He  said  if  any  one  of  the  ladies  who 
had  come  to  teach  Abbie  had  humanely 
taken  hold  as  Eliza  was  doing,  how  grate 
ful  he  would  have  been.  The  others  found 
it  hard  to  agree  with  him. 

There  was  something  else  down  there 
in  the  valley  just  now  too,  as  pleasant  to 
have  escaped  from  as  house-cleaning. 
From  up  here,  as  they  wound  around  and 
emerged  on  the  eyebrows  of  old  Sugar 
Loaf,  as  Mr.  McEwan  called  this  high 
shelving  platform,  they  could  see  storm 
clouds  hanging  low  over  the  house  and  the 
valley,  heavy  with  lightning  and  rolling 
with  thunder.  Then  a  bit  later  they  saw  a 
13  241 


Abbie  Ann 

rainbow  bridging  the  valley,  one  end  rest 
ing  on  a  spur  of  the  old  King  Coal  Moun 
tain,  into  whose  center  the  mine  dipped 
and  burrowed,  while  the  other  end  seemed 
to  drop  behind  the  yellow  railroad  station 
across  the  sidings  and  the  tracks. 

"My  grandmamma  always  laughs  and 
says  there  is  a  pot  of  gold  at  the  end  of  a 
rainbow,"  said  Maria. 

Abbie  had  never  heard  of  this.  "Both 
ends  ?"  she  queried. 

Father  was  close  behind  in  the  buck- 
board,  old  Royal's  gray  nose  almost  into 
the  backs  of  Abbie  and  Maria. 

"Why,  of  course,"  he  called,  "or  how 
could  the  rainbow  be  balanced?" 

Abbie  Ann  turned  about  on  the  seat  of 
the  wagon  and  studied  the  arch. 

"Then  one  pot  of  gold  is  in  our  mine, 
father;  will  they  find  it,  digging,  do  you 
s'pose?" 

"They  certainly  will  not  find  it  if  they 
don't  dig,"  laughed  father. 
242 


Abbie  Ann 

"And  see !  Maria  look !  Why  the  other 
end  of  the  rainbow  rests  right  on  the  sta 
tion!  Will  there  be  a  pot  of  gold  there, 
too,  for  Mr.  McEwan?" 

"In  the  near  course  of  time,  I  think 
there  will  be,"  said  father. 

"Time  's  money,  you  remember,"  came 
back  from  Mr.  McEwan  on  the  front  seat. 

"But  you  said  you  had  found  it  wasn't," 
expostulated  Abbie  Ann. 

"I  was  mistaken";  said  Mr.  McEwan, 
"time  is,  if  you  go  at  it  right." 

But  it  was  after  the  travelers  had  passed 
over  the  eyebrows  of  old  Sugar  Loaf,  and 
had  left  the  horses  unharnessed  and  teth 
ered,  munching  their  dinners  of  corn  and 
hay,  and  had  climbed  on  foot  up  the  short 
pull  to  the  bald,  flat-topped  crown  of  the 
mountain  overlooking  half  a  dozen  vil 
lages  beside  their  own,  that  Abbie  and 
Maria  and  Aunt  Ann  heard  the  explana 
tion  of  how  time  had  proved  to  be  money 
for  Mr.  McEwan. 

243 


Abbie  Ann 

There  were  many  things  to  be  done 
first  though,  before  settling  to  conversa 
tion.  Fabe  had  to  bring  the  basket  and 
the  long-handled  skillet  and  the  coffee-pot, 
then  the  big  can  of  drinking-water,  up  to 
the  camp  on  Sugar  Loaf's  summit,  and 
then  he  and  Mr.  McEwan  had  to  find 
flat  stones  to  build  a  sort  of  oven  affair 
for  the  fire  and  then  start  the  fire  itself 
and  get  the  kettle  on  and  the  water  to 
boiling. 

Then  later,  Fabe  shucked  young  corn 
and  cleaned  it,  and  covered  it  again  in  its 
wet  shuckings  and  buried  it  in  the  ashes  to 
roast,  just  as  he  did  the  potatoes  and  the 
eggs,  only  these  he  rolled  in  wet  leaves. 

Meanwhile  father  and  Mr.  McEwan 
brought  up  the  arm-chair,  expecting  to 
put  Miss  Ann  in  it  amid  sofa-pillows  and 
shawls,  as  if  it  were  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  for  an  old  lady  in  a  silk 
dress  and  gold  eye-glasses,  with  nodding 
mignonette  in  her  bonnet,  to  sit  in  an  up- 
244 


Abbie  Ann 

bolstered  arm-chair  on  a  top  peak  of  an 
Appalachian  mountain. 

But  she  declined  to  be  put  in  the  chair. 
Away  from  the  insistent  care  of  Sister 
Abbie  and  Eliza,  Aunt  Ann  proved  quite 
as  brisk  and  capable  as  any  younger  one 
of  them,  and  found  the  table-cloth  and  de 
lightedly  tottered  around  spreading  it,  and 
produced  the  salt  and  pepper  and  cups  and 
saucers,  and  cut  the  cake  and  piled  the 
fried  chicken  on  the  platter,  and  told  Maria 
and  Abbie  Ann  how  she  and  little  Joseph 
and  her  brother  Charles  once  had  packed 
a  basket  and  slipped  away  and  played  pic 
nic  and  camp  in  their  own  back  yard. 

"Myself,  I  have  always  longed  for  ad 
venture,"  declared  dear  Miss  Ann;  "a 
taste  perhaps  in  common  with  that  ances 
tor  whose  ship  was  scuttled  by  pirates. 
Indeed  I  have  often  urged  Sister  Abbie  to 
consider  foreign  travel.  And  I  like  doing 
things.  If  your  Fabacious  were  not  here 
I  really  should  have  begged  to  be  allowed 
13*  245 


Abbie  Ann 

a  hand  to-day  in  the  cookery."  Then 
hastily  as  if  in  defense  of  such  great  rash 
ness  Aunt  Ann  added,  "I  have  frequently 
made  jelly-cake  in  my  day  and  also  a  syl 
labub  that  even  Sister  Abbie  allowed  to  be 
delicious !" 

Later,  dear  Miss  Ann,  finding  herself 
as  it  were,  the  center  of  the  occasion,  told 
about  some  tarts  she  had  made  and  not  so 
very  many  years  ago. 

Fortunately  by  that  time  the  party  was 
seated  about  the  table-cloth,  munching  hot 
corn  on  the  cob,  with  sizzling  bacon  and 
roasted  eggs  and  cold  chicken  on  the  tin 
plates  before  them;  or,  between  her  men 
tion  of  the  tarts  and  the  odor  of  the  boil 
ing  coffee  which  Fabe  had  on  the  fire,  and 
the  breezy  exhilaration  of  Sugar  Loaf's 
summit,  their  appetites  could  not  have 
stood  it. 

"Peach  tarts  they  were,  filled  into  small 

squares  of  puff  pastry  and  latticed  across 

with  pastry  strips,"   related   Miss   Ann; 

"and  when  they  were  finished,  I  had  Mary, 

246 


Abbie  Ann 

the  cook,  place  them  upon  a  napkin  on  a 
platter,  and  left  her  to  carry  them  to  the 
pantry.  Which  she  did,  setting  them,  for 
some  reason, — her  freshly  baked  bread 
being  on  the  pantry  table  cooling,  I  be 
lieve, — on  the  pantry  window-sill,  also  to 
cool.  And  this  pantry  window  opened  on 
a  side  street  but  being  high  and  screened, 
the  window  was  often  left  open.  Then 
Mary  went  on  to  her  affairs  and  I  up 
stairs,"  continued  Miss  Ann;  "and  when 
we  went  back,  she  and  I,  to  remove  the 
tarts  to  their  proper  place  an  hour  later, 
the  screen  window  was  raised  and  there 
were  no  tarts,  only  a  few  lines  on  a  piece 
of  paper  pinned  down  to  the  board  by  the 
tines  of  one  of  our  prized  and  crested  sil 
ver  forks.  And  it  said,"  went  on  Aunt 
Ann, 

"'The  old,  old  story:— 
"  The  Queen  of  Hearts,  she  made  some  tarts 

All  on  a  summer's  day, 
The  Knave  of  Hearts,  he  stole  those 
tarts  ..-.."' 

247 


Abbie  Ann 

"And  the  next  day,"  continued  Miss  Ann, 
"if  you  will  believe  it,  there  came  to  the 
house  brought  by  the  kitchen  way  just  as 
the  supplies  all  are,  a  bushel  basket  of  the 
most  wonderful  peaches  even  Sister  Abbie 
could  remember  to  have  seen,  and  a  card 
attached  which  said,  'More.'  Sister  Abbie 
thinks  it  was  some  wayward  college  youth 
from  the  University  not  so  many  blocks 
from  us.  But,  whoever  it  was,  it  has  given 
me  a  new  and  more  kindly  feeling  for 
burglars—" 

"Still,"  said  Mr.  McEwan,  "you  cannot 
always  count  on  the  quality  of  your  burg 
lar.  They  would  n't  all  leave  the  fork! 
From  this,  see  how  plainly  you  and  Miss 
Abbie  need  a  protector  in  the  house!  I 
am  going  back  to  the  University  myself 
next  year.  You  might  be  good  to  me  and 
take  me." 

"Really?"  cried  Abbie  Ann. 

And  then  Mr.  McEwan  explained.  It 
was  not  altogether  mere  time  that  had 
248 


Abbie  Ann 

proved  to  be  money,  but,  more  directly,  a 
hole  in  a  piece  of  steel  where  nobody  had 
chanced  to  think  of  a  hole  being  useful 
before.  It  had  something  to  do  with  ma 
chinery  in  the  mines,  and  from  indications 
the  pot  of  gold  was  already  waiting  for 
Mr.  McEwan. 

"And  you  and  I  will  be  with  Aunt  Ab 
bie  and  Aunt  Ann  together/'  cried  Abbie; 
"and  I  won't  mind  so  much  not  living  at 
school  as  I  would,  because  Maria  won't  be 
living  there  next  year  either !" 

"But  we  will  be  together  every  day  at 
Miss  Henrietta's  just  the  same  way,"  ex 
plained  Maria. 

For  Maria's  father  and  mother  were 
coming  home  to  be  stationed  at  the  post 
just  outside  this  very  same  city,  and 
Maria  could  be  with  them,  and  with  the 
flag  and  parade  and  the  soldier  men  and 
the  many  things  she  talked  so  much  about 
and  loved  so  well,  and  yet  could  come  to 
school  and  be  with  Abbie  daily  also. 
249 


Abbie  Ann 

LATE  that  evening  the  picnic  party,  home 
ward  bound,  checked  the  horses  for  a 
breathing  spell  on  the  last  foot  spur  at 
the  base  of  Sugar  Loaf.  Fabe  was  in  the 
buckboard  with  the  paraphernalia  while 
father  this  time  was  in  the  wagon.  Such 
is  the  effect  of  mountain  air,  they  were  all 
forgetting  they  ever  had  had  dinner! 

As  they  paused  above  the  valley,  the 
evening  train  was  winding  its  yellow 
length  in  and  out  of  the  cuts  and  defiles 
that  marked  its  way.  Between  the  low 
hills  to  the  west,  the  sun  slanted  in  across 
the  lowlands  and  the  brawling,  boulder- 
strewn  little  river  and  the  miners'  houses 
and  the  ovens,  long  and  low  and  golden 
and  gleamed  against  a  white  shaft  on  the 
valley's  eastern  slope.  From  some  moun 
tain  side,  the  sheep-bells  tinkled. 

Abbie  Ann  and  Maria  held  each  other's 

hands  close,  they  could  not  have  said  why. 

Then  Abbie  slipped  down  from  the  back 

seat   and   crept  past  Aunt  Ann   in  her 

250 


Abbie  Ann 

stoutly  lashed  arm-chair,  and  reaching 
father,  slipped  a  hand  around  that  he 
might  know  hers  was  there  and  hold  it. 
And  since  his  fingers  closed  promptly  on 
hers,  it  is  to  be  gathered  that  he,  too, 
was  noting  the  sun  slanting  long  and 
golden  and  low  across  the  valley  and  was 
hearing  the  sheep-bells  tinkling  and  un 
derstood. 

Perhaps  the  Miss  Anns  feel  the  need 
of  an  understanding  some  one  too,  at 
evening  when  green  fields  and  hills  are 
touched  by  the  sinking  sun,  for  when  Ab 
bie  next  looked  around,  Maria  was  stand 
ing  at  Aunt  Ann's  old  knee,  and  that  per 
son  was  holding  Maria's  little  hand  be 
tween  both  of  hers. 

But  Mr.  McEwan  was  gazing  fixedly 
valley-ward  pe'rhaps  because  there  was 
no  hand  for  him  to  hold. 

"If  my  glasses  don't  deceive  me,"  said 
he  peering  downward,  "there  is  smoke 
coming  out  of  the  kitchen  chimney." 

251 


Abbie  Ann 

"It  goes  straight  up,  and  it  's  blue," 
said  Maria. 

"Blue  is  true,"  said  Abbie  and  she 
turned  her  ring  so  that  its  small  stone 
gleamed  in  the  sun.  For  her  part,  she 
meant  always  to  be  true. 

THE   END 


252 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


tn  L9-Series  4939 


UC  SOUTHERN I  REG  ONAL  LIBRARY   ACL  TY 


AA      000024819   5 


PS 
2364 

M36a 


